Étienne Pascal (; 2 May 1588 – 24 September 1651) was a French chief tax officer and the father of

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal (19June 162319August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest ...

(1623–1662).

Biography

Pascal was born in Clermont to Martin Pascal, the treasurer of France, and Marguerite Pascal de Mons. He had three daughters, two of whom survived past childhood: Gilberte (1620–1687) and Jacqueline (1625–1661). His wife Antoinette Begon died in 1626. He was a tax official, lawyer, and a wealthy member of the '' petite noblesse'', who also had an interest in science and mathematics. He was trained in the law at Paris and received his law degree in 1610. That year, he returned to Clermont and purchased the post of counsellor for Bas-Auvergne, the area surrounding Clermont. In 1631, five years after his wife's death, Pascal moved with his children to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. They hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Pascal, who never remarried, decided to home-educate his children, who showed extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly his son Blaise. Pascal served on a scientific committee (whose members included

Pierre Hérigone Pierre Hérigone (Latinized as Petrus Herigonius) (1580–1643) was a French mathematician and astronomer. Of Basque origin, Hérigone taught in Paris for most of his life. Works Only one work by Hérigone is known to exist: ''Cursus mathematicu ...

and

Claude Mydorge Claude Mydorge (1585 – July 1647) was a French mathematician. His primary contributions were in geometry and physics. Mydorge served on a scientific committee (whose members included Pierre Hérigone and Étienne Pascal) set up to determine ...

) to determine whether Jean-Baptiste Morin's scheme for determining

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...

from the Moon's motion was practical. The

limaçon In geometry, a limaçon or limacon , also known as a limaçon of Pascal or Pascal's Snail, is defined as a roulette curve formed by the path of a point fixed to a circle when that circle rolls around the outside of a circle of equal radius. I ...

was first studied and named by Pascal, and so this mathematical curve is often called Pascal's limaçon. Pascal died in

Notes

External links

* 1588 births 1651 deaths Scientists from Clermont-Ferrand 17th-century French judges 17th-century French mathematicians Blaise Pascal People from the Province of Auvergne {{France-law-bio-stub