History of Measuring Pressure

By jessicasparrow

  • Galileo's Pump

    Galileo was the developer of a suction which (with the help of a horse) could draw water from the ground.

  • The first barometer

    The first mercury barometer was created by Evangelista Torricelli. He worked alongside Galileo who actually was the one who suggested Torricelli use mercury for his barometer in the first place. This barometer was a long glass tube filled with mercury which was then inverted into a dish. When he did this not all of the mercury left the tube, this was because whatever the atmospheric pressure equaled was also equall to the height of the mercury inside the tube.

  • Otto von Guericke's pump

    Guericke invented a vacuum pump created with a ball made from hemispheres. The ball was drained of air which created a vacuum seal from the atmospheric pressure holding the hemispheres together so tightly not even a team of sixteen horses could pull them apart.

  • The 'Pascal'

    Blaise Pascal used the barometer while travelling up and down a mountain, this lead to the discovery that high altitudes have low atmospheric pressure. Thus leading to an SI unit of pressure to be named the "pascal" after him.

  • The Manometer

    Christiaan Huygens created a device used to measure the pressures of liquids and gases in 1661. Along with this he also worked on creating gunpowder piston-cylinder engine vacuum pumps.

  • Dalton's law of partial pressures

    John Dalton had produced a "law" stating that within a mixture of non-reacting gases the overall exerted pressure is the same as the sums of the partial pressures of the indiidual gases.

  • Law of combining volumes

    Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac had conducted lots of work into finding information on the properties of gases. He then created a "law" which he states that when gases react together and form other gases all of the volumes will be measured at the same temperature and pressure.

  • Avogadro's Hypothesis

    Amadeo Avogardo had observed the work of many scientists until he created his own law. This law had to do with gases and their particles, he believed that any gas at the same temperature and pressure and vloume will always contain the same amount of particles. He also believed that the more gas particles present would lead to higher pressure.