Tor-ri-cel′li — an tube.
A glass tube invented by Torricelli, open at one end and hermetically sealed at the other. Being filled with mercury, the open end is plunged in a basin of mercury, and the metal falls until its vertical hight is just counterbalanced by the pressure of the atmosphere, — a vacuum termed the Torricellian vacuum being at the upper end of the tube. The discovery furnished the world with the barometer (which see).Torricel-lian vacuum. |