The Pascal Commemoration on the Puy de Dôme

Abstract

THE tercentenary of the birth of Blaise Pascal (born June 19, 1623, died August 19, 1662) was celebrated at Clermont-Ferrand in a series of fetes at which the President of the French Republic, M. Miller and, and the most distinguished French scholars and philosophers met to do homage to his great genius. The culminating interest of the celebrations was the visit to the summit of the Puy de Dome on Sunday, July 8, to commemorate the experiment devised by Pascal and carried out successfully by his brother-in-law Florin Perier, an experiment as famous in its day and as decisive in its significance as the eclipse expedition of May 1919 has proved to be in our day. In demonstrating that the atmosphere has weight it destroyed a principle of the old physics which had become authoritative, the principle that Nature abhors a vacuum, and at the same time it inaugurated a new scientific concept in physics. The rain poured as we gathered on the summit where, above the ruins of an ancient temple of Mercury, a modern meteorological observatory has been erected. Those who were so fortunate as to find room in the small cupola of the observatory, however, are not likely to forget M. Painleve's discourse. Round the President were grouped the Prefects of the Departments, the Mayor of Clermont, the Rector of the University, Senators and Deputies, the representatives of the Institut de France, and the foreign guests of the Municipality. In an eloquent oration M. Painleve described the inception of the great experiment and discussed its significance.