Researched
Vacuum Pumps & Gas Laws
Torricelli's barometer (1643), von Guericke's pump and Boyle's law (1662) show that air has weight and pressure.
Open in the interactive tree →Pumping air out of the Magdeburg hemispheres (1654) proved atmospheric pressure, and Boyle found that a gas's volume falls as its pressure rises. The same understanding gave the first steam engines their atmospheric piston and later made vacuum tubes and light bulbs possible.
Prerequisites
Unlocks
- Boyle's Sceptical Chymist1661
- Steam Engine1712Early steam engines worked by condensing steam to make the atmosphere push the piston
- Photosynthesis discovered1779
- Thermodynamics1824Gas laws gave the first quantitative relations between pressure, volume and temperature
- Discovery of the Electron1897
- Vacuum Tube (Triode)1906Tubes need a high vacuum made with vacuum pumps