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Torricelli was the first man to create a sustained vacuum and to discover the principle of a barometer
Torricelli served as Galileo's secretary from 1641 to 1642 and succeeded him as the court mathematician to Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany.
Torricelli was the first man to create a sustained vacuum and to discover the principle of a barometer. In 1643 Torricelli proposed an experiment, later performed by his colleague Vincenzo Viviani, that demonstrated that atmospheric pressure determines the height to which a fluid will rise in a tube inverted over the same liquid. This concept led to the development of the barometer.
Torricelli also proved that the flow of liquid through an opening is proportional to the square root of the height of the liquid a result now known as Torricelli's theorem.
Torricelli found the length of the arc of the cycloid, the curve traced by a point on the circumference of a rotating circle.
He made early use of infinitesimal methods and determined the point in the plane of a triangle so that the sum of its distances from the vertices is a minimum (known as the isogonic centre).
He also studied projectile motion.
References elsewhere in this archive:
Tell me about Torricelli's contributions to Calculus
Tell me about Torricelli's work on minimal paths
Among the curves Torricelli worked on were the Cycloid, the Equiangular spiral and the Right Strophoid.
Other Web sites:
Rice University, USA
Clarke University, USA
References:
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