'In his 20s, at the request of a gambling acquaintance who couldn’t break a losing run at dice, he undertook groundbreaking studies in probability theory. Before that, he invented the world’s first mechanical calculator – the snazzily named Pascaline.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/09/the-guardian-view-on-blaise-pascal-a-thinker-for-our-times