Evangilista Torricelli
Evangilista TorricelliI chose to do my report on Evangelista Torricelli. The reason I chose to do him is because he is both Italian and male. I am also both Italian and male which would be my connection to him.
Evangelista Torricelli is an Italian mathematician and physicist. He was born in Faenza on October 15, 1608. And died in Florence on October 25, 1647. Torricelli was educated at the Jesuit College of Faenza, where he showed such great aptitude for the math and sciences. There he met Castelli, the favorite pupil of Galileo, who instructed him in the work of the laws of motion. Torricelli showed his understanding by writing a thesis on the path of projectiles. Castelli sent this essay in manuscript to Galileo with strong recommendations. The Grand Duke prevailed upon him to remain at Florence and to succeed Galileo at the Academy. There, Torricelli solved some of the great mathematical problems of the day, such as the finding of the area and the center of gravity of the cycloid.
Torricelli's chief invention was the barometer. Pumpmakers of the Grand Duke of Tuscany attempted to raise water to a height of forty feet or more, but found that thirty-two feet was the limit to which it would rise in the suction pump. Strange enough, Galileo, who knew all about the weight of the air, had recourse to the old theory that "nature abhors a vacuum", modifying the law by stating that the "horror"...
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