Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The experiment uses a simple barometer to measure the pressure of air, filling it with mercury up until 75% of the tube. Any air bubbles in the tube must be removed by inverting several times. After that, a clean mercury is filled once again until the tube is completely full. The barometer is then placed inverted on the dish full of mercury.
Torricelli's work led to first speculations about atmospheric pressure, and to the corollary invention of the mercury barometer (from the Greek word baros, meaning weight [16]) -- the principle of which was described as early as 1631 by René Descartes, although there is no evidence that Descartes ever built such an instrument. [17]
When atmospheric pressure is measured by a barometer, the pressure is also referred to as the "barometric pressure". Assume a barometer with a cross-sectional area A, a height h, filled with mercury from the bottom at Point B to the top at Point C. The pressure at the bottom of the barometer, Point B, is equal to the atmospheric pressure.
1643 — Evangelista Torricelli invents the mercury barometer; 1654 — Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made sealed tubes part filled with alcohol, with a bulb and stem, the first modern-style thermometer, depending on the expansion of a liquid, and independent of air pressure [2]
The laws describing the behaviour of gases under fixed pressure, volume, amount of gas, and absolute temperature conditions are called gas laws.The basic gas laws were discovered by the end of the 18th century when scientists found out that relationships between pressure, volume and temperature of a sample of gas could be obtained which would hold to approximation for all gases.
Atmospheric pressure, also known as air pressure or barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth.The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as 101,325 Pa (1,013.25 hPa), which is equivalent to 1,013.25 millibars, [1] 760 mm Hg, 29.9212 inches Hg, or 14.696 psi. [2]
Torricelli attracted considerable attention when he demonstrated the first mercury barometer to the general public. He is credited with giving the first modern explanation of atmospheric pressure. Scientists at the time were familiar with small fluctuations in height that occurred in barometers.
Barometric light was first observed in 1675 by the French astronomer Jean Picard: [4] "Towards the year 1676, Monsieur Picard was transporting his barometer from the Observatory to Port Saint Michel during the night, [when] he noticed a light in a part of the tube where the mercury was moving; this phenomenon having surprised him, he immediately reported it to the sçavans, ... "[5] [6] The ...