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Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei, born on February 15th, 1564, had many contributions to different fields such as physics, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. Less well known is his help developing the suction pump. He used air to extract water that was underground up a column. Galileo could not figure out why the water would stop being raised at around 33 feet up. The development of the suction pump happened in 1630, when Galileo was 66 years old. Galileo later died in 1642, at the age of 78. -
Otto Von Guericke
Otto Von Guricke was born in Germany on November 20th, 1602. He is most well known for creating a vacuum pump that could create a strong seal. Two teams of eight horses tried to pull apart two metal hemispheres joined by his pump, but were unable to do it. Guericke said that the hemispheres were held together by pressure from surrounding fluids and not the seal from the pump. He made the pump in sometime around 1643-1645, when he was around 41-43. In 1686, Guericke passed at the age of 83. -
Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli was an Italian scientist, born on October 15th, 1608. He created the barometer. The barometer was made up of closed-end tube that contained mercury. That tube was then put in another dish of liquid mercury. The height of the column of mercury within the tube was equivalent to the atmospheric pressure acting upon the mercury. This was measured in mm Hg. Torricelli created the barometer in 1643, when he was 35 years old. He died at the age of 39, in 1647. -
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal was born in France on June 19th, 1623. By using Torricelli's barometer he discovered that the pressure of the atmosphere increases as you decrease in altitude. He discovered this by going up and down a mountain with the barometer. He did this in 1648, when he was 25 years old, and because of it the SI unit of pressure was named after him, the Pascal. Pascal also has many contributions to other subjects and has a math contest named after him. Pascal died in 1662, at the age of 39. -
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist, was born on April 14th, 1629. He created the manometer, which measures the pressures of gases. He made this contribution to science in 1661, when he was 32 years of age. Huygens later died on July 8th, in 1695. He was 66 years of age. -
Amadeo Avogadro
Amadeo Avogadro was born in Italy on August 9th, 1776. He came up with Avogadro's Hypothesis, which is that the pressure of a container is directly proportional to the number of particles in the container. That means the increase in pressure contributes to the increase in size of a container, He made this contribution in 1811 when he was 35 years old, with help from Gay-Lussac's work from three years before. Avogadro died in 1856, at the age of 79. -
John Dalton
John Dalton was born on Septermber 6th, 1776 in Cumberland, England. He explained that in a mixture of gases the total pressure is equal to the sum of the pressure of each gas seperately. The pressure expended by each gas is called its partial pressure. He stated this in1801 at the age of 35. Then, in 1844 Dalton passed away at the age of 77. -
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac was born in France on December 6th, 1778. He noticed the law of combining volumes (Example: two volumes of hydrogen, combine with 1 volume of oxygen to make two volumes of water). He contributed this in 1808, when he was 30. He died on May 9th, 1850, at 71 years of age.
