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Mercury barometer: Quick Facts

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Photos

Engraving of Evangelista Torricelli in a 17th-century study, holding a glass tube upright in a dish as he invents the mercury barometer. Books and scientific instruments surround him.
Engraving of Blaise Pascal and two assistants conducting a mercury barometer experiment atop the tower of St. Jacques-la-Boucherie in Paris, with the cityscape in the background.
Black-and-white illustration showing two hands each holding a glass tube, one being inserted into and one already standing in a dish of mercury, demonstrating a mercury barometer.
mercury barometer
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Key People

French philosopher Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
French philosopher and scientist
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Jean André Deluc
Swiss-British geologist and meteorologist