The major step was taken in 1642 by the French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, who was unaware of Schickard's efforts. Blaise Pascal's father soon realized he had fathered a prodigy and devoted himself entirely to his son's education. Believing that the need of knowledge must precede formal study, young Pascal had been kept ignorant of geometry. So, he simply invented his own. At the age of 12, he was discovered doing his version of Euclid's thirty-second proposition on the kitchen floor.