It’s official: Clermont-Ferrand has just launched its year-long celebration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal, “le génie Clermontois.” The party started earlier this month with a performance of music from Pascal’s lifetime in the lovely church of Notre Dame du Port. Over the next 12 months, the celebration continues with: Exhibits at the Henri-Lecoq museum of science and natural history and the Roger-Quilliot museum of art An online collection of documents at the Overnia (Clermont’s digital library of historical materials) about the great man’s life, as well as reproductions of his most famous books and essays A year-long series of concerts, films, lectures and roundtables featuring distinguished artists and scholars celebrating Pascal’s life and the lasting […]
Tag: Science
Get ready to celebrate the 400th birthday of Blaise Pascal – towering genius from the Deep Heart of France
We watched Season 2 of Victoria on Amazon last week. One of the episodes was especially interesting to me: in it, Queen Victoria’s husband (Prince Albert) gets tremendously excited from meeting Charles Babbage, inventor of a great mechanical “difference engine” designed to perform complex calculations.
UPDATE: Blaise Pascal was a towering genius from the Deep Heart of France
Even after more than 40 trips to Paris over the last three decades, Karen and I always find something new and wonderful to see there. On our most recent visit, the winner in this category is the restoration work going on at the abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés on the Left Bank. It’s only half finished at this point, but the work already done has painted the church in rich colors and gold leaf showing how gloriously beautiful it was centuries ago. But we also found two other “new” sites (new to us, that is), both with a connection to one of my personal heroes from the deep heart of France – Blaise Pascal. The incredible thing about […]