MCQ Detailed View

A barometer is a scientific instrument designed to measure atmospheric pressure. The credit for inventing the barometer goes to Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian physicist and mathematician, in 1643. Torricelli was a student of Galileo, and he developed the barometer while studying the properties of air and vacuum.

The barometer works on the principle that air exerts pressure on everything around us. To demonstrate this, Torricelli filled a glass tube with mercury, sealed it at one end, and inverted it into a dish of mercury. He observed that the mercury column dropped slightly and stabilized, leaving an empty space at the top of the tube. This space was later called a Torricellian vacuum. The height of the mercury column changed with variations in atmospheric pressure, and this was the first practical way to measure air pressure.

Other scientists in the options contributed to related fields. Blaise Pascal expanded Torricelli’s work and showed that atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude. Isaac Newton made groundbreaking contributions to physics and mechanics but did not invent the barometer. Christiaan Huygens worked on pendulum clocks and optics, not barometers.

The invention of the barometer was significant because it confirmed that air has weight and exerts measurable pressure. It laid the foundation for understanding gas laws, weather forecasting, and the behavior of gases in physical chemistry. Today, barometers are used in meteorology to predict weather changes, in aviation for altitude measurement, and in laboratories for gas studies.

Thus, the invention of the barometer by Torricelli remains a landmark achievement in the history of science, directly connected to the study of pressure and gases in physical chemistry.