Pascal's Theorem/Historical Note

Historical Note on Pascal's Theorem

Pascal's Theorem was discovered by Blaise Pascal when he was in his mid-teens, in the wake of his encounter with Euclid's The Elements.

He published it in his Essay pour les Coniques, which contains $400$ or so corollaries deduced from it, formed by allowing pairs of the six points involved to merge into coincidence.

James Joseph Sylvester called this theorem:

a sort of cat's cradle.

Sources

• 1937: Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text{V}$: "Greatness and Misery of Man"