Four hundredth anniversary of Pascal's birth (Q6580427)

The article under review deals with Pascal's works on the infinitesimal calculus for commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. Blaise Pascal (1623--1662) as a mathematician is remembered above all for his work on conics and for his famous treatise on the arithmetic triangle. However, in this article, the author focusses on another work, the \textit{Traité de la roulette}. It consists of seven small treatises: 1. Letter to Carcavy; 2. Treatise of trilinear rectangles and their hooves; 3. Properties of simple, triangular and pyramidal sums; 4. Treatise on the sinus of a quadrant of a circle; 5. Treatise of arcs of a circle; 6. Small treatise of circular solids; 7. General treatise on the cycloid. The author analyses all these parts quoting text and geometric figures, emphasizing Pascal's results like the area of the cycloid. Finally, in the conclusion, the author discusses the past and the future of these Pascal's techniques. He explains Pascal's originality on remaining in a geometry that makes calculations. As for the future, the author names Pascal's small parts in the geometric figures, that later would be Leibniz's geometric differentials, but that in Pascal's work remain occults and they don't let us see the new complement in his infinitesimal calculus.