Pascal was considered a child prodigy . Though best known for his works in math , including the creation of Pascal 's Triangle , which is named after him , and developments in the field of probability , Pascal was also a scientist . In honor of his scientific contributions , the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure , to a programming language , and Pascal 's law ( an important principle of hydrostatics ) , and as mentioned above , Pascal 's triangle and Pascal 's wager still bear his name .