Physicist, born in Magdeburg, EC Germany. An engineer in the Swedish army, he later defended his home town in the Thirty Years' War, resulting in his election as one of its four burgomasters in 1646. He improved a water pump (1650) so that it would exhaust air from a container, and was able with this air pump to give dramatic demonstrations of pressure reduction (the Magdeburg hemispheres). He also made the first recorded electrostatic machine.
Otto von Guericke (originally spelled Gericke) (November 20, 1602 – May 11, 1686 (Julian calendar);
Biography
Guericke was born in Magdeburg, Germany.
Air pressure and the vacuum
In 1650 he invented a vacuum pump consisting of a piston and cylinder with one-way flaps designed to pull air out of whatever vessel it was connected to, and used it to investigate the properties of the vacuum in many experiments. Guericke had joined two copper hemispheres of 51 cm diameter (Magdeburg hemispheres) and pumped the air out of the enclosure.
With his experiments Guericke disproved the hypothesis of "horror vacui", that nature abhors a vacuum, that for centuries was a problem for philosophers and scientists.
Other investigations
Guericke applied the barometer to weather prediction and thus prepared the way for meteorology.
Death and afterwards
Guericke died in Hamburg, Germany.
Literature
(All these books are in German)
Die Welt im leeren Raum. Otto von Guericke 1602-1686., Ausstellungskatalog, 2002., ISBN 3-422-06374-9 Otto von Guericke. Schneider, Ditmar: Ein Leben für die Alte Stadt Magdeburg. 2002, ISBN 3-519-25153-1 Neue 'Magdeburgische' Versuche über den leeren Raum Otto von Guericke, Reihe Ostwalds Klassiker, Bd. 59: Übersetzung von Guerickes "Experimenta nova Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio", 1672. Bd.2/1/1 Guericke, Otto von: Otto von Guerickes Neue (so genannte) Magdeburger Versuche über den leeren Raum.
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