One of my favorite mathematicians is Blaise Pascal.

One of my favorite mathematicians is Blaise Pascal. He worked with triangles and pressure and created a computationial Tax machine machine. So before 1640.

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JoeXP · 56-60, M

Good old Pascal’s triangle! I seem to remember learning N!/(N-R)! x R!

We used to like to say ‘R shriek’ rather than ‘factorial R’.

swirlie · 31-35, F

@JoeXP
Pascal didn't invent numbers, he only made the rest of us aware of what those numbers mean when they're used in ways he described, which means Pascal was only the messenger, not the brilliant inventor.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@JoeXP I recall seeing an aside about "number-shriek" in one of my school maths text-books!

It may have been the same book that gave us a particular equation in an exercise, and added that its curve is often called the 'Witch of Agnesi'. It was years before I found an explanation, and it could be taken as rather sly rudeness to the female mathematician who first published the equation, though she did not derive it.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@swirlie Hinting there at the age-old question, is Mathematics "invented" or "discovered"? :)

swirlie · 31-35, F

@ArishMell
The answer is "both", actually.