NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks to mathematician Eugenia Cheng about the Pascaline -- a 17th-century invention credited as the first mechanical calculator.

Earlier this year, [Dan Maloney] went inside mechanical calculators. Being the practical sort, [Dan] jumped right into the Pascaline invented by Blaise Pascal. It couldn’t multiply or divide. He then ...

While necessity is frequently the mother of invention, annoyance often comes into play as well. This was the case with [Blaise Pascal], who as a teenager was tasked with helping his father calculate ...