- Gasparo Berti
Gasparo Berti (c. 1600 – 1643) was an Italian
mathematician ,astronomer andphysicist . He was probably born inMantua and spent most of his life inRome .cite web|title=IMSS - Multimedia Catalogue - Biographies - Gasparo Berti|url=http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/museum/esim.asp?c=300059] He is most famous today for hisexperiment in which he unknowingly created the first workingbarometer . [cite web|title=Weather Doctor's Weather People and History: The Invention of the Barometer|url=http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/barometerhistory1.htm] Though he was best known for his work inmathematics andphysics , little of his work in either survives.cite web|title=The Galileo Project|url=http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/berti.html]In 1630,
Giovanni Batista Baliani sent a letter toGalileo Galilei after he noticed that hissyphon could not raise water more than about thirty-four feet. Galileo proposed that avacuum held the water up and that it could not hold any more.cite web|title=Strange Loops - History of the Barometer|url=http://www.strange-loops.com/scibarometer.html] At the time the existence of vacuums was controversial.Upon reading Gallileo's theory in his "Discorsi", Berti and another named
Rafael Magiotti devised an experiment to test the existence of a vacuum. Some time between 1640 and 1643, Berti built a thirty-six footlead tube, filled it with water, and sealed both ends. He submerged one end in water and unsealed it. Though some of the water flowed out, much of it remained, filling about thirty-four feet of the tube, the same height of Baliani's syphon. Berti claimed that the space above was filled with a vacuum. His claim was strongly contested, and multiple experiments were performed attempting to disprove the existence of a vacuum. This experiment led toEvangelista Torricelli 's research into the weight ofair and his invention of the barometer.He was a chair of mathematics at the
University of Rome La Sapienza . He was to succeedBenedetto Castelli as professor of mathematics, but he died before he could begin teaching. He also mapped the Romancatacomb s.References
Further reading
DSB
first=Stillman
last=Drake
title=Berti, Gasparo
volume=2
pages=83-84ee also
*
Evangelista Torricelli
*Galileo Galilei
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