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Jan 1, 1564
Galileo Galilei
February 15 1564 - January 8 1642 (age 77) In 1593, at the age of 29, Galileo invented the thermometer which used a bulb of air that either contracted or expanded as the temperature changed. Galileo attended the University of Pisa to study medicine in 1581 -
Evangelista Torricelli
October 15, 1608 - October 25, 1647 (age 39) Evangelista Torricelli conducted experiments on gasses when he was 36, which led to his most important invention, which was the Mercury Barometer. Torricelli was Galileo's secretary and assistant for the last few months of Galileo's life. -
Blaise Pascal
June 19, 1623 - August 19, 1662 (age 39) In 1647, at the age of 24, Pascal started doing experiments on atmospheric pressure and discovered that there is indeed a vacuum. In 1648, he determined that the pressure of the atmosphere decreases with height and concluded that a vacuum existed above the atmosphere. In honour of his contributions to science, a unit of pressure and Pascal's law have been named after him. -
Otto Von Guericke
November 20, 1602 - May 11, 1686 (age 83) When Guericke was 48, he indicated the force of air pressure by inventing a vacuum pump consisting of a piston and an air gun cylinder with two-way flaps made to pull air out of whatever vessel it was connected to. He showed that substances were not pulled by the vacuum, but were pushed by the pressure of the bordering fluids. Guericke believed in experimentation instead of accepting previously held scientific facts. -
Christiaan Huygens
April 14, 1629 - July 8, 1695 (age 66) When he was 32, Huygens created the manometer which is a device used to measure the pressure of gases and liquids. Before he created the manometer, he was interested in astronomy and was the first person to recognize the shape of Saturn's rings. -
Amadeo Avogadro
August 9, 1776 - July 9, 1856 (age 79) When he was 35, he stated that at the same amount of volume in gases which are at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules. The law that Avogadro created is 6.023 x10^23 molecules in a mole. -
John Dalton
September 6, 1766 - July 22, 1844 (age 77) Created a law, which states that the total pressure of a gas is equal to the sum of the pressure of the individual gas atoms in a compound. Dalton developed the atomic theory of matter.
