Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal was born in France in 1623. He was the third child and only son of Etienne Pascal. His mother died when he was a baby, so Blaise was raised and educated at home by his father. His father decided that he did not want Blaise to study mathematics before he turned 15 and got rid of all of the math books in their house. However, Blaise was very interested in mathematics and started to work on geometry by himself at the age of 12.
At the age of 14, Blaise started going with his father to some meetings of a religious group that also studied mathematics. …