Autore
Toscano, Fabio

Titolo
Evangelista Torricelli: grandi scoperte e autocensure = Evangelista Torricelli: great discoveries and self-censorship
Periodico
Il colle di Galileo
Anno: 2014 - Volume: 3 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 31 - Pagina finale: 46

Galileo’s greatest pupil and his heir in the position of “Mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Evangelista Torricelli was a central figure in seventeenth-century science in terms of the vastness and importance of the works he conducted in physics and mathematics. His most famous result was the invention of the mercury barometer, the instrument that still provides the most accurate method of measuring atmospheric pressure. This invention was the result of an ingenious and simple experiment that also served to demonstrate for the first time the exist- ence of the vacuum in nature. Despite this, Torricelli wished to have no part in the philosophical debate on vacuum sparked by his great discovery, but on the contrary chose to censure himself for fear of suffering a condemnation for heresy from the Roman church such as that inflicted on Galileo. Furthermore, although a convinced Copernican, he also consistently shunned the cosmological debate, despite never having abandoned his youthful interest in astronomy.



SICI: 2281-7727(2014)3:1<31:ETGSEA>2.0.ZU;2-F
Testo completo: http://www.fupress.net/index.php/cdg/article/download/14646/13690

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