Quotes About Torricelli

Evangelista Torricelli. Torricelli's experiments led to the invention of the mercury-column barometer, which responds to changes in air pressure—that is, to changes in the density of the column of air above the instrument.

Is it a surprise that into the vessel, in which the mercury has no inclination and no repugnance, not even the slightest, to being there, it should enter and should rise in a column high enough to make equilibrium with the weight of the external air which forces it up?

Torricelli fully realized the advantages and disadvantages of the method of indivisibles; and he suspected that the ancients possessed some such method for discovering difficult theorems, the proofs of which they cast in another form either "to hide the secret of their method or to avoid giving occasion for contradiction to jealous detractors.

Many have argued that a vacuum does not exist, others claim it exists only with difficulty in spite of the repugnance of nature; I know of no one who claims it easily exists without any resistance from nature.