This makes sense as the Arithmometer proves to be too cumbersome for its main users in academia and business. The Comptometer was a design patented by the American industrialist Dorr Eugene Felt and was intended to rapidly enter and calculate long figures. This led to the next step, the Comptometer. To illustrate if one were to multiply a figure by 53, rather than cranking the handle 53 times, one would only need to turn it three times (for the ones digit), shift the accumulator and turn another five times (for the tens digits).ĭe Colmar’s invention was widely copied (patent laws aren’t as enforceable then as it is today), but it also spurred innovation for original designs, motivated by high demands for calculators and inspired by the Industrial Revolution’s obsession for efficiency. This carry mechanism is at the heart of the Pascaline, unlike in the minute and hour gears of a clock, they are independent (the display of a clock is a dial, while the Pascaline have digital indicators).Īs shown in the diagram, the Arithmometer allows for rapid long multiplication and divisions using a movable accumulator that allows for multiplication by digits. So we can see why Pascal got his solution from clocks. The basic monetary unit is the Livre (Pound in English), each Livre is divided into 20 Sols, and each Sol is divided into 12 Deniers. counting money) but at the time the French state uses a non-decimal monetary system. The Pascaline was initially developed for accounting (i.e. Just as clock gears step up every 60 seconds or 60 minutes, Pascal’s ‘calculating clock’ steps up depending on what use it’s for. In 1642, after seeing his father struggling with menial calculation due to his job as a tax collector, Pascal designed a device that was inspired by the mechanical clocks of the day. As a scientist and philosopher of science, Pascal championed strict empirical observation and the use of controlled experiments. Despite chronic ill health, Pascal made historic contributions to mathematics and to physical science, including both experimental and theoretical work on hydraulics, atmospheric pressure, and the existence and nature of the vacuum. In philosophy he was an early pioneer in existentialism. In mathematics, he was an early pioneer in the fields of game theory and probability theory. Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and theologian.
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