The first calculator. The Pascalina or La Pascaline. A mechanical device with gears and numbers from 0 to 9.

The First Calculator an Amazing Innovation

Innovation from 379 years ago.

3 min readJan 2, 2022

--

Pascal invented the first calculator to help his father. And the world took many turns until reaching pocket machines.

Blaise Pascal Versailles.

1642.

Pascal’s calculator also known as the arithmetic machine or Pascaline is a mechanical calculator invented by Blaise Pascal in the mid 17th century.

Pascal was led to develop a calculator by the laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father’s work as the supervisor of taxes in Rouen.

He designed the machine to add and subtract two numbers directly and to perform multiplication and division through repeated addition or subtraction.

At that time the closest thing there was to a calculating machine was the abacus.

The inventor of the first calculator, the Frenchman Blaise Pascal, built it very young, he was 19 years old.

Pascal’s triangle.

Each number is the sum of the two directly above it. The triangle demonstrates many mathematical properties in addition to showing binomial coefficients.

--

--

Regia Marinho
Regia Marinho

Written by Regia Marinho

I publish tech, art, food, AI, AR, architecture, interior design, fashion, and photography articles. Ideas to inspire the world through art. @regiaart

No responses yet