FRANCE 500 Francs Blaise Pascal 1974-84 Very Fine+
Blaise Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand, June 19, 1623 – Paris, August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher and theologian. Child prodigy, he was taught by his father.
At the age of sixteen he wrote a treatise on projective geometry and from 1654 he worked with Pierre de Fermat on the theory of probabilities which strongly influenced modern economic theories and social sciences; after a mystical experience following an accident in which he had risked his life, in 1654, he abandoned mathematics and physics to devote himself to religious and philosophical reflections; he died two months after his 39th birthday, in 1662, after a long illness that afflicted him from childhood. His IQ has been estimated by some modern scholars to be 185