GRAND VOYAGE ITALY
  • Piazza
    • Older Posts
  • Travel
    • Our Family's Voyage
  • Cucina
  • Culture
  • History
  • Style
  • Photos
  • Videos
    • Music Videos
  • About
    • Survey
    • Links
  • Shop 🛒
  • Piazza
    • Older Posts
  • Travel
    • Our Family's Voyage
  • Cucina
  • Culture
  • History
  • Style
  • Photos
  • Videos
    • Music Videos
  • About
    • Survey
    • Links
  • Shop 🛒
We're All About Italy

History

Noteworthy Italians: Evangelista Torricelli under Pressure, invents the Barometer!

10/6/2017

Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Evangelista Torricelli was born Oct. 15, 1608 in Faenza, Romagna. He was an Italian physicist and mathematician who invented the barometer, a device that measures atmospheric pressure, commonly used in forecasting changes in the weather. The catalyst for inventing the barometer was spurred on my a suggestion by Galileo that Torricelli use mercury in place of water for his vacuum experiments. 

After reading his papers in 1641, Galileo invited Torricelli to Florence, where he became the aging astronomer's secretary and assistant during the last three months of Galileo’s life. After Galileo's death, Torricelli was appointed as his successor as professor of mathematics at the Florentine Academy.
 
Two years later, pursuing the suggestion by Galileo, he filled a glass tube 4 feet (1.2 m) long with mercury and inverted the tube into a dish. He observed that some of the mercury did not flow out and that the space above the mercury in the tube was a vacuum. Torricelli became the first man to create a sustained vacuum. His observations proved that the variation of the height of the mercury from day to day was caused by changes in atmospheric pressure. He never published his findings, however, because he was too deeply involved in the study of pure mathematics. Since atmospheric pressure also changes with altitude, Torricelli's barometer also could be used as an altimeter.

Torricelli died Oct. 25, 1647 in Florence at a mere 39 years old.

As a further honor, Torricelli had both a crater on the moon and a submarine named after him...


Picture
Torricelli Crater on the Moon
Picture
Italian Evangelista Torricelli (S-512), c. 1960 (formerly called the Lizardfish in the U.S. Navy)
Play the video to see how Torricelli's experiment worked.
Comments

    Archives

    May 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Ancient Romans
    Archeology
    Architecture
    Famous Italians
    Fine Arts
    Geology
    Heritage
    Holidays
    Immigration
    Inventors
    Italian Americans
    Maps
    Music
    Religion
    Renaissance
    Technologies
    Unification

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2014 - 2022 by GrandVoyageItaly.com
Picture
  • Piazza
    • Older Posts
  • Travel
    • Our Family's Voyage
  • Cucina
  • Culture
  • History
  • Style
  • Photos
  • Videos
    • Music Videos
  • About
    • Survey
    • Links
  • Shop 🛒