| Torricelli | Evangelista, Italian scientist, 1608-1647. See: torr. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| torricellian | Of or pertaining to Torricelli, an Italian philosopher and mathematician, who, in 1643, discovered that the rise of a liquid in a tube, as in the barometer, is due to atmospheric pressure. See Barometer. Torricellian tube, a glass tube thirty or more inches in length, open at the lower end and hermetically sealed at the upper, such as is used in the barometer. <physics> Torricellian vacuum, a vacuum produced by filling with a fluid, as mercury, a tube hermetically closed at one end, and, after immersing the other end in a vessel of the same fluid, allowing the inclosed fluid to descend till it is counterbalanced by the pressure of the atmosphere, as in the barometer. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |