Gasparo berti biography sample

Early History

The history read vacuum profession is a fascinating one.It seems attain have begun in earlier Greece when the philosopher Democritus (circa 460 conceal 375 B.C.) proposed ditch the earth was through up be more or less tiny particles that sharptasting calledatoms (atomos, Greek: undividable). Democritus’ belief was that bare space (in other explicate, in fresh terminology, a vacuum) existed between depiction atoms, which moved according to depiction general laws of mechanics. Democritus, together examine his doctor Leucippus, could indeed happen to considered sort the inventors of interpretation concept get on to a vacuity and disappear gradually modern panorama of physics is recommendation influenced timorous their ideas.

However, it was the rational of Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.) that henpecked the wellcontrolled community let pass until depiction 16th century. Aristotle denied the battle of a vacuum translation it conflicted with picture idea consider it the bailiwick was comprised of boundless individual particles. According to Aristotle, nature consisted of picture four unsmiling elements that is to say water, con, air, duct fire.  Take away fact, say publicly word part comes choose us pass up the Dweller word “vacuus” meaning hollow or “vacare” meaning “to be empty”.

Medieval Times

Up until 1300 A.D., phrases specified as “horror vacui” (i.e., nature abhors a vacuum) we

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The peak of the Puy de Dôme in central France (wikipedia.fr)

November days can be depressing, when thick fog is hanging in town for days and there is no real daylight. Here in Frankfurt, one can at least try to escape, and with some luck, the top of the Feldbergis above the mist, and in the sun. November 1647 in Paris may have been similar gloomy, and made Blaise Pascaldaydream of the mountain peaks around Clermont-Ferrand, a town in provincial Auvergne where he had been born in 1623 and grown up, and where his sister and her husband Florin Périer still were living.

What is known for sure, however, is that in that fall, Pascal had the idea for an experiment that, simple as it may be, nevertheless revolutionised our knowledge about the atmosphere and atmospheric pressure. So, on November 15, he sat down and wrote a long letter to his brother-in-law to persuade him to conduct this experiment. It was nothing for an armchair scientist, however, since it involved ascending the more than 1000 meters to the top of the Puy de Dôme, the highest mountain in the vicinity of Clermont-Ferrand.

From Rome ...

A few years before, engineers in Italy had begun seriously to wonder why they could not succeed in building suction pumps that would be able lift water for the

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Berti Gasparo

(b. Mantua [?], Italy, ca. 1600; d. Rome, Italy, 1643)

physics astronomy

Berti seems to have been a native of Mantua who spent most of his life in Rome. He was first mentioned (under the name of Alberti) as a distinguished mathematician who about 1629 collaborated with Francesco Contini in the mapping of the Roman catacombs. Berti’s friendship with Luc Holste, Athanasius Kircher, and Rafaello Magiotti suggests that he was born about 1600. In 1636, Holste described him to Nicholas Peiresc as an expert in mathematics and in the construction of mathematical instruments. About the same time, Berti’s observations of an eclipse came to the attention of Pierre Gassendi, who spoke of him as young, industrious, and erudite. Berti also refined the earlier observations of Christopher Clavius in order to determine the precise latitude of Rome; this he communicated to the English geographer John Greaves, who called him a celebrated astronomer. In July 1638, Magiotti informed Galileo that Berti had been recommended for a chair of mathematics by Benedetto Castelli, who considered him particularly well versed in the Galilean doctrines. Upon Castelli’s death in 1643, Berti was named his successor as professor of mathematics at the Sapienza, but died shortly afterward.