Torricelli, Evangelista

[person]

Italian mathematician and astronomer, born in Faenza, Italy (1608-1647). He authored Torricelli's Theorem, which states that the flow of liquid through an opening is proportional to the square root of the height of the liquid. Torricelli also experimentally proved that air has weight and invented the barometer. His work is somewhat obscure today, in part because he only published one work, Opera Geometrica.