Blaise Pascal lived from 1623-1662 and during his living years led an interesting life. Pascal was recognized as a gifted person even from childhood. Before he was 30 years of age, Pascal demonstrated his mathematical genius by writing an accomplished paper on conic sections, giving major contributions to number theory and geometry, even published important discoveries on vacuum, and also laid the groundwork for probability and modern decision theories. Most important to our discussion is the calculating machine that he built to help his father in his tax business.