Talk:Blaise Pascal

images
There are too many images, and it's making this page crowded. I say we remove the stamp image, and develop a caption for the statue image. -- Removed this passage: "Following an accident in 1654 at the Neuilly bridge where the horses plunged over the parapet but the carriage miraculously survived, Pascal abandoned mathematics and physics for philosophy and theology." Source? Pascal's turn toward religion is commonly attributed to his mystical experience of Nov. 23, 1654. Mark K. Jensen 09:47, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * Found a source placing the accident in question 15 days before Pascal's mystical experience. Mark K. Jensen 01:25, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Article Direction
When searching for Pascal I was brought to an article about the Pascal physics unit. It seems obvious that the biography of a man should come before an article about a connotation in the mans honor, so I think it should direct here first.

Semi-protected edit request on 29 November 2019

 * this page should be unprotected -- there is no reason for it to be protected for >10yrs. either wikip is open, or it isnt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4B00:89AA:CA00:680B:8D6C:3328:A26C (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Request: Pascal had three sibling(s) not two. He had Older sibling and she died when she was child. Her name remains unknown. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=qpmGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=pascal+is+third+child&source=bl&ots=FnMn72jFMx&sig=ACfU3U1xOKpGvBj6jDd3jo5DN-IHjYCprQ&hl=id&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-gtXSiJHmAhUKbn0KHfu8DBMQ6AEwGnoECAkQAQ I'm not sure and I'm a little bit skeptical with some sources. More: http://famous-mathematicians.org/blaise-pascal/ https://prezi.com/fmw68lwidhds/blaise-pascal/ http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/pascal/About_Pascal.htmMathemaphilosophie (talk) 21:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. – Frood (talk) 02:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not a regular contributor to Wikipedia but I do know a thing or two about Pascal. The older sister's name was Antonia, or sometimes spelled Anthonia. There are literally hundreds of references to her all over the internet, including here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3241/blaise-pascal
 * There is also a reference to it in Pascal's biography, "Pascal's Wager" by James A. Connor, 2006 (Harper Collins). Looking at the reference "reliable sources" shown above gave me little to no understanding as to why the original reference was inadequate. 98.53.149.206 (talk) 22:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Also I'm not the original person who made the comment - just another passer-by who noticed the same error as the original poster did. 98.53.149.206 (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Edit request October 2020
"The latter contains Pascal's Wager, a probabilistic argument for God's existence." This sentence is found in the introduction to the page. It would be better to characterize the Wager as a practical argument for the belief in God's existence. Its focus is to persuade the listener to live and accept theism, not demonstrate its theoretical truth. This is obvious since the argument itself proceeds by admitting that God may not exist, which in any case is better not to be supposed, hence its conclusion.
 * I'm not sure I got my head around your criticism. I grant Pascal is something of a fideist and also that one could elaborate on the Wager and I've yet to do so, but it is definitely based in probability. It and Bayes Theorem are probably the two most famous instances of use of the mathematics of probability in philosophy. It is not a mere piece of rhetoric, but a piece of logic or at least mathematics. The force of the argument is not just practical but numerical; that belief in God is an infinite reward for finite cost. "Practical argument for God's existence" sounds more like Kant's moral argument for God's existence, which he would call based in practical reason.   Your point seems to be that it's not an argument for the logical necessity of God, which is true, but then probabilistic in the sense of inductive rather than deductive inference is also correct.  Cake  (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I’m not the original poster here, but I think what they’re saying is that the Wager isn’t an argument that God exists; it’s an argument in favor of believing in God.
 * The phrase “probabilistic argument for God's existence” can be read as meaning “an argument (based in probabilistic math) claiming that God exists.”
 * So I think OP was saying that the phrasing here is misleading about what the Wager argues in favor of. Elysdir (talk) 17:49, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

reference to Zhu Shijie
There is no reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhu_Shijie in this article. According to this Wikipedia entry 朱世傑 invented or discovered this mathematical schema some several hundred years before Blaise Pascal. This article should make reference to this fact. PillarOfAshok (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * We need uninvolved reliable sources stating this. Ymblanter (talk) 01:07, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Upon re-reading the existing material in Wikipedia I think the matter is dealt with sufficiently in the separate article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle. I also chatted with a few folks on the Chinese language wikipedia discord about this topic, who pointed out that 'Pascal's Triangle' is known as 杨辉三角 in Chinese (Yang Hui Triangle) - nevertheless the Chinese language version of the above article (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/巴斯卡三角形) refers to Pascal's triangle. Nobody seemed bothered by this. PillarOfAshok (talk) 14:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I have added a redirection for those who desire to see the main article, namely, Pascal's triangle. Wherein, those who feel intrigued by the section will click on the main article thus having a bien pensant understanding of the Pascal’s triangle. Raulois (talk) 18:49, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Was Pascal gay?
In Bit by Bit: An Illustrated History of Computers, Stan Augarten writes: “To a large degree, Blaise's extreme religiosity was fuelled by agonizingly poor health and a pent-up sexuality—he apparently was a homosexual.” (p. 23)

I’m not finding anything about his sexuality anywhere online (except for a copy of the above line, used verbatim without attributing it to Augarten) and Augarten doesn’t give a source for the claim that Pascal was gay.

Anyone have any more information?

Or, more generally, any more info about Pascal’s personal life? I feel like whether or not he was gay, more info about him as a person would be a useful addition to this article. Elysdir (talk) 18:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I delved into this matter and, it’s suffice to say that, there’s no evidence capable of corroborating that Pascal was “gay”. Thus, I’m exceptionally intrigued to scrutinize where Augarten procured the notion that Pascal was “gay”, is it because he was single? Pascal was always interconnected with his sisters and cared deeply for Mademoiselle de Roanez (you can find her on the French Wikipedia). Raulois (talk) 21:07, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the book, if anyone would like to read the excerpt in context. It was written by Stan Augarten; note it a similar sentence has been reprinted on this university website. BhamBoi (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2024 (UTC)