Today in Technology History
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August 19
Blaise Pascal died exactly 340 years ago. A philosopher and scientist, he built one of the first mechanical calculating machines.
Pascal was born in 1623. Throughout his life he was blessed with prodigious intelligence but cursed with ill health: indigestion, insomnia and painful headaches. (The latter may have been caused by a skull deformity.) His most important literary work was about theology; his most important mathematical work involved conic sections; his most important scientific work was in the area of hydrostatics and barometry.
He also made a few advances in technology. He invented the syringe, although not the hypodermic version. And in 1642, when he was only 19 years old, he invented a calculating machine.
Pascal's father was a tax official and Pascal's mechanical calculator was supposed to help in his father's work. The calculator, which eventually became known as a "Pascaline," was a box with gears inside and small numbered dials on the lid. The box would sit on a table, and the user would enter data by turning the dials, with each dial representing a place value (ones, tens, hundreds, etc.). The dials would then rotate gears inside the box, which would turn other marked wheels that displayed the desired answer.
The calculator was only mechanically capable of adding -- much like a car odometer today -- but Pascal used a mathematical trick to get the calculator to display the results of subtraction problems, too.
The young inventor received a special patent for his calculator, but he never found a profitable way of manufacturing and selling it. Production stopped in 1652, with only a few dozen Pascalines in existence. Even so, Pascal's ideas inspired and influenced inventors who made such devices as clocks and cash registers -- and eventually computers.
When Pascal died on August 19, 1662, he was only 39 years old.
Related links:
This biography of Pascal talks about his calculator and his other mathematical advances.
Click here to learn how the Pascaline worked.
This page has pictures of several Pascalines, including one drawing of a Pascaline in use on a table.
Click here to read about Pascal's religious writings.
One later inventor inspired by Pascal was Charles Babbage, who designed a calculating machine in the 1800s that can be considered a primitive computer. Click here to read more about Babbage.
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