Evangelista Torricelli Facts
Evangelista Torricelli Facts
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| Interesting Evangelista Torricelli Facts: |
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| He was born in Rome to Gaspare Ruberti and Giacoma Torricelli. |
| Ruberti was a poor textile worker so he sent his son to Faenze to be educated by his uncle, Jacobo, a Camaldolese monk. |
| Jacobo secured a sound basic education for young Torricelli and in 1624 entered him into a Jesuit College to study mathematics and philosophy. |
| In 1626 Torricelli was sent to Rome to study science at the Collegio della Sapienza. |
| Torricelli's teacher, Benedictine monk Benedetto Castelli, was a student of Galileo's. |
| While Torricelli was his student Castelli experimented on running water and Pope Urban VIII funded his experiments with hydraulics. |
| In 1632 Torricelli wrote to Galileo congratulating him on his support of the Copernican view of the solar system. |
| Unfortunately that view put Galileo at odds with the Vatican and he was condemned to house arrest. |
| In 1641 Castelli sent Torricelli's paper on the path of projectiles to Galileo who invited Torricelli to visit. |
| After Galileo's death on 8 January 1642, the Grand Duke Ferdinano de'Medici asked Torricelli to become the grand-ducal mathematician and chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. |
| In 1644 he published his book Opera Geometrica in which he solved some of the great mathematical problems of his day. |
| He designed and built several microscopes and telescopes and several large lenses can still be seen in Florence. |
| He died of typhoid fever and is buried at the Basilica of San Lorenzo. |
| The asteroid 7437 Torricelli and a crater on the Moon were named for him. |
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