Episode 4: Part 1-Blaise Pascal and the First Modern Omnibus Transit Network

Notes for Episodes 4 & 5: Blaise Pascal and the First Modern Omnibus Transit Network

Episodes 4 dives deep into the life of Blaise Pascal. In Episodes 5, we look at Pascal's friend, colleague, and benefactor, Artus Gouffier (the Duc de Roannez) and we discuss the omnibus system that the two friends created. 

Sources for more information:

Please note that the newspaper articles are available for free through many public library systems. They are not all available for free on the Internet.

 

Omnibus and Pascal

·      Fiona Zublin, The First Buses in the World Were in Paris (And They Ate Hay), Ozy (Dec. 11, 2018) – https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-first-buses-in-the-world-were-in-paris-and-they-ate-hay/90088/ 

·      Carrosses a cinq sols, Wikipedia (Updated Nov. 21, 2021) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrosses_%C3%A0_cinq_sols 

·      Randy Alfred, March 18, 1662: The Bus Starts Here … In Paris, Wired (Mar. 17, 2008) – https://www.wired.com/2008/03/march-18-1662-the-bus-starts-here-in-paris/ 

·      Transport Network, whytodayisbrilliant (blog) (Mar. 18, 2016) (Shows a map of the omnibus network at its height) – https://whytodayisbrilliant.wordpress.com/tag/blaise-pascal/ 

·      Jerry Mikorenda, Blaise Pascal Gets Taken for a Ride, Jerry Mikorenda (blog) (Mar. 10, 2020) – https://www.jerrymikorenda.com/post/blaise-pascal-gets-taken-for-a-ride-1 

 

Biography of Pascal

·      Morris Bishop, Pascal: The Life of Genius (Greenwood Press 1936)

·      Desmond Clarke, Blaise Pascal, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (June 22, 2015) – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal/ 

·      Dominique Descotes and Gilles Proust, Les Pensees de Blaise Pascal, (Introduction provides a chronology of Pascal’s life and explains what happened to Pascal’s personal papers following his death; information about the authors appears at http://www.penseesdepascal.fr/General/CML.php) (2011) – http://www.penseesdepascal.fr/General/Introduction.php 

·      Bridge-to-terebethia, Blaise Pascal, Timetoast Timelines (undated) – https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/blaise-pascal--5 

·      David Simpson, Blaise Pascal, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (No date given) – https://iep.utm.edu/pascal-b/#SH1e

·      A Provincial Named Blaise Pascal (Undated) (Webpages with information about specific aspects of Pascal’s life and work) – https://blaisepascal.bibliotheques-clermontmetropole.eu/ 

 

Pascal’s health problems 

·      Anca Sava, et al., The mysterious “mental illness” of a philosopher: the case of Blaise Pascal, 60 Romanian Journal of Morphology and Embryology 1383-89 (2019) (Diagnosis of Pascal’s illness from early childhood, its progression, and medical causes of his early death) –https://rjme.ro/RJME/resources/files/60041913831389.pdf  

·      Marc Zanello, et al., The mysteries of Blaise Pascal’s sutures, Childs Nerv Syst 31, 503–506 (2015) (Diagnosis of oxycephaly, which has to do with malformation of the skull) – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-015-2622-9 and https://rdcu.be/cGjiL 

·      David Simpson, Blaise Pascal, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (No date given) (Arguing that Pascal suffered from “migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia – a complex of illnesses often found together and which also frequently occur in combination with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.”) – https://iep.utm.edu/pascal-b/#SH1e

 

Calculating machine

·      Mechanical calculator, Wikipedia (Updated Nov. 3, 2021) (History of these early machines and their invento