In “De l'esprit géométrique », the use of reason for knowledge is thought on a geometric model. In geometry, the first principles are given by the natural lights common to all men, and there is no need to define them. Other principles are clearly defined by definitions of names such that it is always possible to mentally substitute the definition for the defined [23][24][25]. These definitions of names are completely free, the only condition to be respected is univocity and invariability. Judging his solution as one of his most important contributions to science, Pascal envisioned the drafting of a small treatise entitled “Géométrie du Hasard” (Geometry of Chance). He will never write it. Inspired by this, Christian Huygens wrote the first treatise on the calculation of chances, the “De ratiociniis in ludo aleae” ("On calculation in games of chance", 1657). We can conclude this preamble by observing that seminal work of Blaise Pascal on Probability was inspired by Geometry. The objective of GSI conference is to come back to this initial idea that we can geometrize statistics in a rigorous way.
We can also make reference to Blaise Pascal for this GSI conference on computing geometrical statistics, because he was the inventor of computer with his “Pascaline” machine. The introduction of Pascaline marks the beginning of the development of mechanical calculus in Europe. This development, which will pass from the calculating machines to the electrical and electronic calculators of the following centuries, will culminate with the invention of the microprocessor. But it was also Charles Babbage who conceived his analytical machine from 1834 to 1837, a programmable calculating machine which was the ancestor of the computers of the 1940s, combining the inventions of Blaise Pascal and Jacquard’s machine, with instructions written on perforated cards, one of the descendants of the Pascaline, the first machine which supplied the intelligence of man.
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