The barometer is an instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure, and the first one was made in 1643 by the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli, a pupil of Galileo. He filled a long glass tube with mercury and stood it upside down in a dish of mercury, and found that the column dropped to a certain height, leaving an empty space above it. He concluded that the weight of the air pressing on the dish held the column up, and that the height varied with the weather. Blaise Pascal later had the experiment carried up a mountain, showing that pressure falls with altitude. Barometers became essential tools for weather forecasting, aviation and the study of the atmosphere.
Before and after
- from 1642 to 1651English Civil War
- 1642Invention of Pascal's calculator
- 8 January 1642Death of Galileo Galilei
- 25 December 1642Birth of Isaac Newton
- 1643Barometer
- from 23 February 1643 to 30 August 1645Kieft's War
- 1644Birth of Matsuo Bashō
- June 1644The Manchus take Beijing and found Qing rule
- from September 1644 to July 1645Sieges of Taunton
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This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 17th century.