Life history of evangelista torricelli

Born near Ravenna, Italy, Torricelli was first educated in local Jesuit schools and showed such brilliance that he was sent to Rome to study with Galileo's former student Benedetto Castelli — Through Castelli he first corresponded with and met Galileo, finally becoming his secretary and assistant. A few months after Galileo's death inTorricelli accepted Galileo's old position as court mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tuscanya position he held until his own death, before his fortieth birthday.

Torricelli's investigations in mathematics played an important role in scientific history as well. Based on Francesco Cavalieri's "geometry of indivisibles," Torricelli worked out equations upon curves, solids, and their rotations, helping to bridge the gap between Greek geometry and calculus. E vangelista Torricelli is best known for inventing the mercury barometer and for his fundamental results in hydrodynamics.

He also made important contributions to many areas of mathematics. Torricelli was born on October 15,in Faenza, Italy. After Torricelli demonstrated his talents at an early age, his father, a textile artisan in modest circumstances, sent him to his uncle who supervised his education. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the Jesuit school in Faenza before going to Rome in to attended Sapienza College, run by Benedetto Castellia former student of Galileo In Torricelli completed De motu graviumin which he developed some of Galileo's ideas on projectile motion.

He experimentally verified many new conclusions and stated what is today known as Torricelli's law—a rigid system of bodies can move spontaneously on Earth's surface only if its center of gravity descends. Useful theorems of external ballistics followed, as well as artillery firing tables. He also propounded a fundamental hydrodynamic theorem that bears his name—the efflux velocity of a jet of liquid exiting a small orifice equals the velocity of a single drop of liquid falling freely in a vacuum from the same height as the liquid level at the orifice.

Castelli showed this work to Galileo. Suitably impressed, he engaged Torricelli as his personal life history of evangelista torricelli in They developed a close friendship, and Torricelli remained with Galileo until his death early the next year. After his death Galileo's followers in Rome and Florence continued a long-standing debate over why water in suction pumps would not rise more than Galileo had argued that pumps created a vacuum, which in turn exerted a force on the water, thus preventing it from rising.

Giovanni Battista Baliani as early a maintained that it was the weight of air that was responsible. Torricelli undertook a series of experiments in to settle the issue. The clearest evidence was provided by what now is readily recognized as the barometer. Torricelli filled a long glass tube with mercury. Placing his finger over the open end, he inverted the tube and inserted it in a large dish of mercury.

As expected, the mercury began to drain out of the tube—all but 3 inches 76 millimeters that is. Torricelli interpreted the result in accordance with Baliani's hypothesis, arguing that the weight of air pressing on the mercury in the dish balanced that of the mercury column. The discovery was announced in a letter to Michelangelo Ricci In fact, the letter suggests Torricelli, based on observations of various hydrostatic devices, was aware of variations in atmospheric pressure before the experiment and was more concerned with producing "an instrument that would show changes of air, now heavier and denser, now lighter and thinner.

Torricelli also made significant contributions to the development of the calculus—a subject he possibly would have invented if he had lived long enough. He developed important results on maxima and minima, used infinitesimal methods to complete the first modern rectification of a curveand produced what is perhaps the first graph of a logarithmic function His independent discovery of the quadrature and center of gravity of the cycloid embroiled him in a bitter priority dispute with Gilles Persone de Robervalwho most certainly arrived at these results first.

While in the process of assembling his correspondence and notes to defend his claims, Torricelli fell violently ill. He died, possibly of typhoid feverin Florence on October 25, The Italian mathematician and physicist Evangelista Torricelli invented the mercury barometer and made important contributions to calculus and the theories of hydraulics and dynamics.

Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza on Oct. Left fatherless early in life, he was educated by his uncle, who was in monastic orders. In his uncle sent him to Rome to study mathematics and natural philosophy under Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio di Sapienza, who had been one of Galileo's pupils. Torricelli spent the next 10 years in study.

He corresponded with Galileo and studied his writings. He was especially impressed by the Dialogues concerning Two New Sciences and at once generalized Galileo's analysis of projectile motion. His conclusions on this and other subjects were set down in his book De motu gravium ; published Galileo invited Torricelli to Florence inand he became the amanuensis and companion of the great scientist until Galileo died 3 months later.

Soon after, Torricelli succeeded him as grand-ducal mathematician and professor of mathematics at the Florentine Academy. Torricelli experimented with telescopes and simple microscopes, grinding his own lenses, and by carefully controlling their curvature, he produced telescopes superior to most of those of his contemporaries. His most important practical invention was the mercury barometer, first described in a letter to Michelangelo Ricci dated June 11, Torricelli had repeated Galileo's experiments with the thermoscope and was led to his discovery when he substituted mercury for water in the tube.

He found also that water could be used as the liquid in the barometer if the containing vessel was sufficiently long "18 cubits, " that is, approximately 33 feetand he realized that the column of liquid was held up by the pressure of the atmosphere. In the course of his experiments, Torricelli observed that the quantities of water discharged from a hole in the bottom of a tank in life history of evangelista torricelli increments of time were propor-tional, from the last increment to the first, to successive odd numbers.

This observation is said to have reminded him of Galileo's law of the velocity of a falling body, and it suggested to him that he should treat the jet of water as a series of freely falling particles, each with a speed determined by the original height of the water surface in the tank— Torricelli's law of efflux. Torricelli saw the advantages of the method of indivisibles, which is used in mathematics to find lengths, areas, and volumes.

He thought that the ancients might have used the method in the discovery of difficult theorems, the proofs of which were put in geometrical forms "to hide the secret of their method or to avoid giving jealous detractors an opportunity to object. Torricelli used the methods of so many other mathematicians that he was frequently involved in disputes over priority.

Especially bitter was his controversy with G. Roberval, which flared up after Torricelli had published in a tract on the properties of the cycloid. Roberval accused him of plagiarizing his earlier solution of the problem of its quadrature. The controversy was still alive when Torricelli died in Florence on Oct. Most of the biographical writings on Torricelli are in Italian.

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Life history of evangelista torricelli

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Categories : Physical sciences Biography Mathematicians Inventors. Privacy policy. He left all his belongings to his adopted son Alessandro. This early work owes much to the study of the classics. The asteroid Torricelli and a crater on the Moon were named in his honor. Click Here to Know about a Legend Dr. Abdul Kalam. Toggle navigation Menu. Social Discuss Sign Up Login.

Evangelista Torricelli Popular Inventions. Home inventors Evangelista Torricelli. With these tools he was able to show that rotating the unlimited area of a rectangular hyperbola between the y y y -axis and a fixed point on the curve, resulted in a finite volume life history of evangelista torricelli rotated round the y y y -axis.

Notice that we have stated this result in the modern notation of coordinate geometry which was totally unavailable to Torricelli. This last result, described in [ 1 ] as We mentioned Torricelli's results on the cycloid and these resulted in a dispute between him and Roberval. The article [ 19 ] discusses We should also note another fine contribution made by Torricelli was in solving a problem due to Fermat when he determined the point in the plane of a triangle so that the sum of its distances from the vertices is a minimum known as the isogonic centre of the triangle.

This contribution, described in detail in [ 20 ]is summarised in that paper as follows:- AroundTorricelli devised a geometrical solution to a problem, allegedly first formulated in the early s by Fermat : 'given three points in a plane, find a fourth point such that the sum of its distances to the three given points is as small as possible'.

Torricelli was the first person to create a sustained vacuum and to discover the principle of a barometer. In he proposed an experiment, later performed by his colleague Vincenzo Vivianithat demonstrated that atmospheric pressure determines the height to which a fluid will rise in a tube inverted over the same liquid. This concept led to the development of the barometer.

Torricelli wrote a letter to his friend Michelangelo Ricciwho like him had been a student of Castelli, on 11 June At this stage Torricelli was in Florence, writing to his friend Ricci who was in Rome. I have already called attention to certain philosophical experiments that are in progress 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.

Whether a vacuum existed was a question which had been argued over for centuries. Aristotle had simply claimed that a vacuum was a logical contradiction, but difficulties with this had led Renaissance scientists to modify this to the claim that 'nature abhors a vacuum' which is in line with those who Torricelli suggests believe a vacuum exists despite 'the repugnance of nature'.

Galileo had observed the experimental evidence that a suction pump could only raise water by about nine metres but had given an incorrect explanation based on the "force created by a vacuum". Torricelli then described an experiment and gives for the first time the correct explanation:- We have made many glass vessels These were filled with mercury, the open end was closed with the finger, and the tubes were then inverted in a vessel where there was mercury.

We saw that an empty space was formed and that nothing happened in the vessel where this space was formed I claim that the force which keeps the mercury from falling is external and that the force comes from outside the tube. On the surface of the mercury which is in the bowl rests the weight of a column of fifty miles of air. 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?

He attempted to examine the vacuum which he was able to create and test whether sound travelled in a vacuum. He also tried to see if insects could live in the vacuum. However he seems not to have succeeded with these experiments. It was another remarkable contribution which has led to some suggesting that this result makes him the founder of hydrodynamics.

Also in De motu gravium Torricelli studied projectile motion. He developed Galileo 's ideas on the parabolic trajectory of projectiles launched horizontally, giving a theory for projectiles launched at any angle. He also gave numerical tables which would help gunners find the correct elevation of their guns to give the required range. Three years later he received a letter from Renieri of Genoa who claimed that he had conducted some experiments which contradicted the theory of parabolic trajectories.