Treasures of the Library : Traité du triangle arithmetique : auec quelques autres petits traitez sur la mesme matière

Pascal, Blaise, 1623-1662

Treasures of the Library

<p style='text-align: justify;'>In 1654 Blaise Pascal entered into correspondence with Pierre de Fermat of Toulouse about some problems in calculating the odds in games of chance, as a result of which he wrote the <i>Traité du triangle arithmétique, avec quelques autres petits traitez sur la mesme matière</i>, probably in August of that year. Not published until 1665, this work, and the correspondence itself which was published in 1679, is the basis of Pascal’s reputation in probability theory as the originator of the concept of expectation and its use recursively to solve the ‘Problem of Points’, as well as the justification for calling the arithmetical triangle ‘Pascal’s triangle’. These advances are considered to be the foundation of probability theory. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>A full discussion of this work, by Professor A.W.F. Edwards, is available <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/244353/pascalintro.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y'>here</a>.</p>