Evangelista Torricelli

Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician who invented the mercury barometer and formulated Torricelli’s law of fluid efflux.

Galileo Galilei: Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician who helped establish experimental physics. Torricelli served as Galileo’s assistant during the final months of Galileo’s life.
Mercury barometer: A mercury barometer measures atmospheric pressure by the height of a mercury column supported in an evacuated tube. Torricelli’s invention used mercury’s density to create a compact, readable pressure indicator.
Galileo's Two New Sciences: Two New Sciences is Galileo’s 1638 work on the strength of materials and the mathematical description of motion. Torricelli developed ideas about falling bodies and fluid motion in the tradition represented by this work.
Barometer: A barometer is an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure. Torricelli’s mercury instrument established the barometer as a practical scientific device.
Benedetto Castelli: Benedetto Castelli was an Italian mathematician and Benedictine monk who studied hydraulics and taught at the Sapienza University of Rome. Castelli was Torricelli’s teacher and introduced him to Galileo’s work.
Torricelli's law: Torricelli's law states that fluid exits a small opening at the speed an object would gain falling through the fluid's surface height. This relation between falling bodies and outflow is the fluid-mechanics result named for Torricelli.
Aristotelian physics: Aristotelian physics is the natural philosophy derived from Aristotle, influential in Europe for centuries. The barometer’s empty space undermined the Aristotelian denial of vacuum.
Torricelli's trumpet: Torricelli's trumpet, or Gabriel's horn, is a surface formed by rotating the curve y = 1/x about the x-axis. Torricelli’s mathematical work inspired a paradoxical solid with finite volume and infinite surface area.
Vincenzo Viviani: Vincenzo Viviani was an Italian mathematician and physicist who studied under Galileo and collaborated with leading seventeenth-century scientists. Viviani worked with Torricelli in Florence and helped preserve accounts of his experiments.
Atmospheric pressure: Atmospheric pressure is the force per unit area exerted by the weight and motion of air. The atmosphere supports the mercury column in Torricelli’s barometer.

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