TORRICELLI EXPERIMENT

Listen to the following video about the experiment of Torricelli and then fill the gaps in the text:

Torricelli Experiment

Torricelli performed his celebrated experiment on argento vivo (quicksilver) i.e mercury in ……………………. in Spring 1644.  Torricelli filled a glass tube open on one end with ……………………….  Then closing off the open end with a finger he tipped the ..…………. upside down and lowered it into another basin containing more mercury.  He observed that the column of mercury…………………………. only partially stopping at a height of about ………. cm.  Toricelli was convinced that the space created by the descent of the mercury in the tube was …………………, and that the force holding up the column consisted of the ………………… exerted by the……..  on the mercury in the basin.  In a letter to Michelangelo Ricci June the 11^th 1644 Torricelli declared that his ………………………. proved 2 fundamental concepts; 1^st that nature did not abhor the void 2^nd that air had ………………..  The results of the mercury experiment opened a period of………………………….. change, forcing a re-examination of doctrine accepted for ………………………...