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hydrostatics
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Italian-born physicist Dr. Enrico Fermi draws a diagram at a blackboard with mathematical equations. circa 1950.
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Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi at work in the wireless room of his yacht Electra, c. 1920.
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hydrostatics, Branch of physics that deals with the characteristics of fluids at rest, particularly with the pressure in a fluid or exerted by a fluid (gas or liquid) on an immersed body. In applications, the principles of hydrostatics are used for problems relating to pressure in deep water (pressure increases with depth) and high in the atmosphere (pressure lessens with altitude).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Curley.