Blaise Pascal and his radical change
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:51 am
Here is about this radical change of famous scientist:
"During the night of 23 November 1654, Pascal had a dreamlike or ecstatic experience which he interpreted as a religious conversion. He wrote a summary of the experience in a brief document entitled the Memorial, which he sewed into his coat and carried with him until his death eight years later. The intensity of this experience resulted in a definitive change in Pascal's lifestyle, in his intellectual interests, and in his personal ambitions. After 1654, he terminated the mathematical discussions about which he had correspondended with Fermat, and he cancelled plans to publish a booklet on the vacuum that was ready to go into print. This booklet appeared posthumously as Traités de l'équilibre des liqueurs et de la pesanteur de la masse de l'air (1663), with an introduction by Florin Périer. Périer may have exaggerated the other-worldly attitude of his late brother-in-law, when he wrote that, for more than ten years before his death, Pascal was aware of ‘the vanity and nothingness of all these types of knowledge, and that he had acquired such disgust for them that he could hardly tolerate intelligent people devoting their time to them and speaking seriously about them’ (I, 459). Pascal had entered the final period of his life, which was dominated by religious controversy, continual illness, and loneliness."
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal/
his memorial here: http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/pascal.html
English translation
The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.
"During the night of 23 November 1654, Pascal had a dreamlike or ecstatic experience which he interpreted as a religious conversion. He wrote a summary of the experience in a brief document entitled the Memorial, which he sewed into his coat and carried with him until his death eight years later. The intensity of this experience resulted in a definitive change in Pascal's lifestyle, in his intellectual interests, and in his personal ambitions. After 1654, he terminated the mathematical discussions about which he had correspondended with Fermat, and he cancelled plans to publish a booklet on the vacuum that was ready to go into print. This booklet appeared posthumously as Traités de l'équilibre des liqueurs et de la pesanteur de la masse de l'air (1663), with an introduction by Florin Périer. Périer may have exaggerated the other-worldly attitude of his late brother-in-law, when he wrote that, for more than ten years before his death, Pascal was aware of ‘the vanity and nothingness of all these types of knowledge, and that he had acquired such disgust for them that he could hardly tolerate intelligent people devoting their time to them and speaking seriously about them’ (I, 459). Pascal had entered the final period of his life, which was dominated by religious controversy, continual illness, and loneliness."
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal/
his memorial here: http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/pascal.html
English translation
The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.