“Week in review,” by Suzanna Murawski

“Week in review,” by Suzanna Murawski

Recent stories of note: “Descartes Be Damned” Costica Bradatan, Literary Review If you studied French, philosophy, meteorology, or math, you’re bound to recognize the name Blaise Pascal—for, despite living only thirty-nine years, he wrote the classic Pensées, invented one of the first mechanical calculators, and has the unit of pressure, the pascal, named after him. A new book by Graham Tomlin presents the polymath as a founding figure of modern…