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Galileo Galilei
Galileo was interested in regular water pumps and this lead him to find out that the water could only rise to 34 feet, but would not raise any higher. This he was unable to explain, however many scientists after were focused on figuring out why this was happening. Galileo was also the founder of the Thermoscope which is now our modern day Thermometer. -
Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli continued on with Galileo's work and was able to determine why his pump could only draw water to a certain point. This was because of the atmospheric pressure exerted on the water. Evangelista also went on to establish the mercury barometer. The mercury that filled this tube fluctuated exactly with the atmospheric pressure acting on it. -
Otto von Guericke
Otto von Guericke invented an instrument called a vacuum pump, which had the capability of pulling air out of whatever it was connected to. To test this he constructed two 20 inch hemispheres and locked them together with a vacuum seal that was so strong that 16 horses couldn't pull them apart. -
Blasie Pascal
Blaise Pascal expanded on the knowledge of Torricelli by using his barometer. He decided to monitor the movement of the mercury while he walked up and down a mountain. While doing this he discovered that the atmospheric pressure increased as he went down. Years later the Pascal, a unit of pressure was named after him. -
Christiann Huygens
Christiann was the creator of the Manometer. It is an instrument that was used to measure the pressure of gases and liquids. They did this by reading a column of liquid on the Manometer to measure the substance pressure. Now in modern day the device that preforms the same result is called either a pressure or vacuum gauge. -
John Dalton
John Dalton was the creator of Dalton's law of partial pressures. He stated that when a mixture of gases were together that the total pressure of the gases is equal to the sum of the pressure of each gas individually. This pressure he called the partial pressure. -
Joseph Louis Gay-Lusssac
Joseph created the law of combining volumes for gases. He stated that if gases at a constant temperature and pressure combine they will result in an equal product. For example two molecules of hydrogen + 1 molecule of Oxygen = 2 molecules of water. -
Amadeo Avogadro
Amadeo Avogardo expanded on Joseph Louis Gay-Lussic's contribution. He created a hypothesis that said that the pressure in a container was directly proportional to the particle number in that container. An example of this is a balloon, the more you blow into it the larger it becomes, this is because of the elevated pressure on the outsides of the balloon.
