Magdeburg hemispheres
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The Magdeburg hemispheres are a pair of large copper hemispheres with mating rims that were used in a famous 1654 experiment to demonstrate the power of atmospheric pressure. When the rims were sealed
Gaspar Schott's sketch of Otto von Guericke's Magdeburg hemispheres experiment
The original Magdeburg hemispheres and Guericke's vacuum pump in the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany
1680 and 1720 Magdeburg hemispheres at the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
Stamps celebrating the display and test of the vacuum hemispheres of Otto von Guericke in Magdeburg, Germany
Vacuum pump
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A vacuum pump is a type of pump device that draws gas particles from a sealed volume in order to leave behind a partial vacuum. The first vacuum pump was invented in 1650 by Otto von Guericke, and was
Magdeburg hemispheres
…did not. The first artificial vacuum had been produced a few years earlier by Evangelista Torricelli and inspired Guericke to design the world's first vacuum pump, which consisted of a piston and cylinder with one-way flap valves. The hemispheres became popular in physics lectures as an illustration of the strength…
Student of Smolny Institute Catherine Molchanova with vacuum pump, by Dmitry Levitzky, 1776
A cutaway view of a turbomolecular high vacuum pump