The Blaise Pascal Chair, (Chaires Internationales de Recherche Blaise Pascal, France), established in 1996 by the Government of the Île-de-France Region for internationally acclaimed foreign scientists in all disciplines. A scientific committee annually selects the most outstanding candidates from all over the world. Since its inception a number of famous scientists were the Blaise Pascal Chair laureates: Gérard Debreu (UC Berkeley, 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics), Ahmed Zewail (Caltech, 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), Igor Mel'čuk (University of Montreal, the world leading researcher in linguistics), George Smoot (LBL, 2006 Nobel Prize in experimental Astrophysics), Robert Langlands (UBC, 1996 Wolf Prize, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century), outstanding theoretical physicists Gabriele Veneziano (CERN/College de France), Alexander Zamolodchikov (Rutgers), and others.
Famous quotes containing the words blaise pascal, pascal and/or chair:
“Let us then examine this point, and say, “God is, or he is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Does he who loves someone on account of beauty really love that person? No, for smallpox, which will kill beauty without killing the person, will cause him to love the person no more. And if one loves me for my judgment, for my memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this myself, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul?”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“This stable is a Prince’s court.
This crib His chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
The wooden dish His plate.”
—Robert Southwell (1561?–1595)