The Mathematician Who Burned His Proofs for Fire

On the night of November 23, 1654, Blaise Pascal — one of the most brilliant mathematicians in France — had an encounter he could barely put into words. For two hours, the man who had invented the mechanical calculator and advanced geometry sat weeping in his room in Paris, scribbling fragments on a scrap of parchment: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob — not of the philosophers and scholars.…