pascal

Pascal is a surname and given name of French origin derived from the Latin Paschalis, meaning "of Easter." The name is most notably associated with Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and religious thinker whose work spanned geometry, hydraulics, probability theory, and philosophy. The term is also used in a variety of scientific, mathematical, and technological contexts.

Blaise Pascal’s contributions include the invention of the Pascaline, an early mechanical calculator developed with his father Étienne Pascal to aid arithmetic in tax collection. He made foundational contributions to fluid mechanics and hydrostatics, and he pursued early studies in barometry. In philosophy and theology, Pensees outlines his religious reflections and arguments such as Pascal’s wager.

The pascal is the SI unit of pressure, symbol Pa, defined as one newton per square meter, named in honor of Blaise Pascal for his studies on fluid pressure and related phenomena.

In computing, Pascal is a high-level programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth and published in 1970. It emphasizes structured programming and data structuring, and was widely used for teaching programming and for developing software on multiple platforms. Its influence persists in dialects and descendants such as Object Pascal, used by Delphi and Free Pascal, and in modern compilers such as Turbo Pascal.

In mathematics and geometry, terms bearing Pascal’s name include Pascal’s triangle, a triangular array of binomial coefficients; Pascal’s theorem in projective geometry; and in probability, Pascal’s wager regarding belief in God. The name continues to appear in various personal and institutional names.