The Roots of Modern Casino Roulette
As they say, everything must have a beginning, an end, and season and time of its own. The modern casino-driven cities in the United States, Europe, and other places are so thoroughly updated to modern conceptions that one would be hard-pressed to guess at, or even consider, that many of the games featured within the fancy facilities' walls date back several centuries. That is the case, however, for each and every one. Roulette, in particular, is commonly believed to date back to late-17th-century France, invented by a man by the name of Blaise Pascal.
Blaise Pascal and Roulette
Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont, France, in 1632, as the only son in a family of four children (of which he was the third). His father, a single parent after the death of Blaise's mother when the boy was quite young, preferred for his son to study Greek and Latin rather than mathematics. Young Blaise, however, somehow managed to secretly learn geometry, and at the age of 15, his father finally allowed him to continue his studies openly, and one year later, the teenager presented a geometry paper which impressed the mathematics community of Paris - all much older and more experienced than this 16-year-old.
Blaise Pascal's first significant contribution to the field of gambling came at the behest of a friend who also happened to be a gambling aficionado: if a game ends before it is played to its natural conclusion, how then to divide the winnings? On one hand, one player will inevitably be ahead of the other, but on the other hand, if the game continued, there would be no way to predict with 100% certainty that player's eventual overall win. So Pascal devised the first theory of probabilities relating to a game of chance, devising how to predict the game's progress and therefore, how to divide the spoils. This theory was then put into practice to apply to other fields in which probability played a large role.
This theory was not Pascal's only one. He also came up with Pascal's Triangle, a theory dealing with binomial coefficients, as well as Pascal's Law, which holds that a pressure applied to a confined liquid in any place will spread throughout the entire liquid within its container. These theories don't apply to gambling, but simply demonstrate the intelligence and mathematical aptitude of this man. He invented the Roulette wheel in the course of trying to develop a perpetual motion machine. That is, every time you play a game of Roulette - online or otherwise - you should stop for a moment to consider the mathematical genius and effort that went into its invention.
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