Blaise Pascal, age 19, created the first mechanical (digital) calculator in 1642. At 16, the French genius had written a treatise on geometry. A follower of “intuitionism,” he claimed to experience God through the heart rather than reason. In later years, he corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, which influenced economics and the social sciences. Who knows what else he’d have accomplished if he hadn’t died at age 39? Read Who Cares? about the struggle for dignity at Woodruff Home for the Aged, “a lively place where old people go to die.” Learn more about the book and its characters, aged 9-90, in NOVELS.
Pascal was a mathematical genius of invention during his short life
Woodruff Home for the Aged, where aging with dignity battles corporate greed
