torricellian

Tor`ri*cel"li*an, a. Defn: Of or pertaining to Torricelli, an Italian philosopher and mathematician, who, in 1643, discovered that the rise of a liquid in a tube, as in the barometer, is due to atmospheric pressure. See Barometer. Torricellian tube, a glass tube thirty or more inches in length, open at the lower end and hermetically sealed at the upper, such as is used in the barometer. -- Torricellian vacuum (Physics), a vacuum produced by filling with a fluid, as mercury, a tube hermetically closed at one end, and, after immersing the other end in a vessel of the same fluid, allowing the inclosed fluid to descend till it is counterbalanced by the pressure of the atmosphere, as in the barometer. Hutton.

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