His father was a textile worker and the family was very poor. Seeing his talents, his parents sent him to be educated under the care of his uncle, jacobo, a camaldolese monk, who first ensured that his nephew was given a sound basic education.
He then entered young torricelli into a jesuit college in 1624, possibly the one in faenza itself, to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, by which time his father, gaspare, had died. The uncle then sent torricelli to rome to study science under the benedictine monk benedetto castelli, professor of mathematics at the collegio della sapienza (now known as the sapienza university of rome).
In 1632, shortly after the publication of galileo’s dialogues of the new science, torricelli wrote to galileo of reading it with the delight … Of one who, having already practiced all of geometry most diligently … And having studied ptolemy and seen almost everything of tycho brahe, kepler and longomontanus, finally, forced by the many congruences, came to adhere to copernicus, and was a galileian in profession and sect. The vatican condemned galileo in june 1633, and this was the only known occasion on which torricelli openly declared himself to hold the copernican view. Aside from several letters, little is known of torricelli’s activities in the years between 1632 and 1641, when castelli sent torricelli’s monograph of the path of projectiles to galileo, then a prisoner in his villa at arcetri.
He also designed and built a number of telescopes and simple microscopes; several large lenses, engraved with his name, are still preserved in florence. On 11th june, 1644, he famously wrote in a letter to michelangelo ricci. Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo d’un pelago d’aria. We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air. Torricelli died in florence on 25 october 1647, a few days after having contracted typhoid fever, and was buried at the basilica of san lorenzo. The asteroid 7437 torricelli was named in his honor.
Pump makers of the grand duke of tuscany attempted to raise water to a height of 12 meters or more, but found that 10 meters was the limit with a suction pump (as recounted in galileo’s dialogue). Torricelli employed merc, fourteen times more dense than water. In 1643 he created a tube approximately one meter long, sealed at the top, filled it with merc, and set it vertically into a basin of merc. The column of merc fell to about 76 cm, leaving a torricellian vacuum above.
As we now know, the column’s height fluctuated with changing atmospheric pressure; this was the first barometer. The discovery of the principle of the barometer has perpetuated his fame (”torricellian tube”, “torricellian vacuum”).
The torr, a unit of pressure used in vacuum measurements, is named after him.
The item “Magnificent Vintage English Mahogany Stick Barometer The Atlas Torricelli 1643″ is in sale since Monday, February 17, 2014. This item is in the category “Antiques\Science & Medicine (Pre-1930)\Scientific Instruments\Barometers”. The seller is “spooknook” and is located in Weymouth, Massachusetts.
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