Adjacent Words

Torricellian vacuum definitions

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Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a vacuum formed when mercury in a long tube closed at one end is inverted with the open end in a reservoir of mercury (the principle on which a barometer is made). Etymology: Torricelli: see TORR

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Torricellian Tor`ri*cel"li*an, a. 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.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vacuum valve, a safety valve opening inward to admit air to a vessel in which the pressure is less than that of the atmosphere, in order to prevent collapse. Torricellian vacuum. See under Torricellian.