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I chose to do my report on Evangelista Torricelli. The reason I chose to do him is because he is both Italian and male. I am also both Italian and male which would be my connection to him. Evangelista Torricelli is an Italian mathematician an ....

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... of the great mathematical problems of the day, such as the finding of the area and the center of gravity of the cycloid. Torricelli's chief invention was the barometer. Pumpmakers of the Grand Duke of Tuscany attempted to raise water to a height of forty feet or more, but found that thirty-two feet was the limit to which it would rise in the suction pump. Strange enough, Galileo, who knew all about the weight of the air, had recourse to the old theory that "nature abhors a vacuum", modifying the law by stating that the "horror" extended only to about thirty-two feet. Torricelli at once conceived the correct explanation. He tried the ex ...