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:
“Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The chair as ideas fits only the bottom as idea.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)