who invented the barometer

The barometer was invented by the Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli in the 1640s, using a column of mercury to measure atmospheric pressure.

Quick Scoop: Who invented the barometer?

If you’ve ever checked the weather and seen “pressure is falling,” you’re indirectly using the work of one man: Evangelista Torricelli , an Italian scientist from the 17th century. He is widely credited with inventing the first true barometer, specifically a mercury barometer, around 1643–1644.

The Inventor: Evangelista Torricelli

• Torricelli lived from 1608 to 1647 and worked as a physicist and mathematician in Italy.

• He was a student of Benedetto Castelli and later succeeded Galileo as court mathematician in Florence.

• He is best known for creating the mercury barometer, but he also contributed to geometry and early ideas that fed into calculus.

A simplified way to picture his experiment: Torricelli filled a long glass tube with mercury, sealed at one end, then inverted it into a dish of mercury and watched the level in the tube fall and stabilize. That stable column height revealed that something “outside” (air) was pressing on the mercury dish, giving the first clear, measurable demonstration of atmospheric pressure.

A bit of background and debate

While Torricelli gets the credit, he wasn’t working in a vacuum (ironically!).

• Earlier experiments:
  • Gasparo Berti built a tall water-filled tube between about 1640 and 1644 that behaved somewhat like a barometer, but it wasn’t designed to systematically measure changing air pressure, so historians don’t class it as a true barometer.

• Conceptual roots:
  • Ideas about suction pumps and the limit to how high water could be sucked (about 10 meters) were discussed by Galileo and others, setting the stage for Torricelli’s work on atmospheric pressure.

Despite these precursors, Torricelli is “traditionally considered the inventor of the barometer” because he was the first to treat it as an instrument to measure air pressure, not just a curiosity or vacuum-making device.

Why it mattered (then and now)

Torricelli’s barometer didn’t just explain a puzzling pump problem; it turned the invisible air above us into something that could be measured.

• It launched a new way of thinking about the atmosphere as having weight and pressure.

• It opened the door to weather prediction based on pressure changes, which is still a core part of meteorology today.

• Shortly after, Blaise Pascal extended Torricelli’s work by taking barometers up mountains to show that pressure drops with altitude.

Tiny FAQ

• Who invented the barometer in one name?
  Evangelista Torricelli.

• What type did he invent?
  A mercury barometer, the earliest and classic form of barometer.

• When roughly?
  Around 1643–1644.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.