Benedetto Castelli (1577-1644), and Evangelista Torricelli
(1608-1647), two of the disciples of Galileo, applied the discoveries
of their master to the science of hydrodynamics. In 1628 Castelli
published a small work, _Della misura dell' acque correnti_, in which
he satisfactorily explained several phenomena in the motion of fluids
in rivers and canals; but he committed a great paralogism in supposing
the velocity of the water proportional to the depth of the orifice
below the surface of the vessel. Torricelli, observing that in a jet
where the water rushed through a small ajutage it rose to nearly the
same height with the reservoir from which it was supplied, imagined
that it ought to move with the same velocity as if it had fallen
through that height by the force of gravity, and hence he deduced the
proposition that the velocities of liquids are as the square root of
the head, apart from the resistance of the air and the friction of the
orifice. This theorem was published in 1643, at the end of his
treatise _De motu gravium projectorum_, and it was confirmed by the
experiments of Raffaello Magiotti on the quantities of water
discharged from different ajutages under different pressures (1648).
In the hands of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) hydrostatics assumed the
dignity of a science, and in a treatise on the equilibrium of liquids
(_Sur l'équilibre des liqueurs_), found among his manuscripts after
his death and published in 1663, the laws of the equilibrium of
liquids were demonstrated in the most simple manner, and amply
confirmed by experiments.
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