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Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Galileo Galilei created the suction pump. He used air to draw underground water up a column. He was perplexed as to why there was a limit to the height that water could be raised. Age: 66 -
Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647)
Torricelli developed the first barometer. Galileo's work was carried into it by determining that the limit to the height of Galileo's pump that could draw water was due to atmospheric pressure. He invented a closed-end tube filled with mercury, that was suspended in a shallow dish filled with liquid mercury. The height of the column of mercury in the tube, was equal to the atmospheric pressure acting on the mercury in the pan. Age: 35 -
Otto von Guericke (1602-1696)
Guericke created a pump that could create a vacuum so strong that a team of 16 horses could not pull two metal hemispheres apart. He said that the hemispheres were held together by the mechanical force of the atmospheric pressure rather than the vacuum. Age: 41-43 -
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Pascal used Torricelli's "barometer" and travelled up and down a mountain in southern France. He discovered that the pressure of the atmosphere increased as he moved down the mountain. Age: 25 -
Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
Huygens developed the manometer to study the elastic forces in gases. Age:32 -
John Dalton (1766-1844)
Dalton stated that in a mixture of gases the total pressure is equal to the sum of the pressure of each gas, as if it were in a container alone. The pressure exerted by each gas is called its partial pressure. Age: 35 -
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)
Gay-Lussac observed the law of combining volumes. As an example, he noticed that two volumes of hydrogen combined with one volume of oxygen form two volumes of water. Age:30 -
Amadeo Avogadro (1776-1856)
Avogadro suggested that the pressure in a container is directly proportional to the number of particles in that container (known as Avogadro's Hypothesis). This can be illustrated by blowing up a balloon, ball, or tire; the more the air is added, the larger the container becomes due to increased pressure. Age: 35
