Editing Scientific Revolution (section)

===Other devices===
[[File:Boyle air pump.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Air pump]] built by [[Robert Boyle]]. Many new instruments were devised in this period, which greatly aided in the expansion of scientific knowledge.]]

The invention of the [[vacuum pump]] paved the way for the experiments of [[Robert Boyle]] and Robert Hooke into the nature of [[vacuum]] and [[atmospheric pressure]]. The first such device was made by [[Otto von Guericke]] in 1654. It consisted of a piston and an [[Air gun#History|air gun cylinder]] with flaps that could suck the air from any vessel that it was connected to. In 1657, he pumped the air out of two conjoined hemispheres and demonstrated that a team of sixteen horses were incapable of pulling it apart.<ref>{{cite book | first=John | last=Lienhard | title=Rain Steam & Speed | chapter=Gases and Force | year=2005 | publisher=[[KUHF]] FM Radio | chapter-url=http://www.kuhf.org/cons/cdprojects/steam/track7.html | access-date=20 March 2015 | archive-date=20 September 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920010118/http://www.kuhf.org/cons/cdprojects/steam/track7.html | url-status=dead }}</ref> The air pump construction was greatly improved by Hooke in 1658.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |title=On the Early History of the Air-pump in England |author=Wilson, George |date=15 January 1849 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNosAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA207}}</ref>

[[Evangelista Torricelli]] invented the mercury [[barometer]] in 1643. The motivation for the invention was to improve on the suction pumps that were used to raise water out of the mines. Torricelli constructed a sealed tube filled with mercury, set vertically into a basin of the same substance. The column of mercury fell downwards, leaving a Torricellian vacuum above.<ref name="John Timbs">{{cite book|last1=Timbs|first1=John|title=Wonderful Inventions: From the Mariner's Compass to the Electric Telegraph Cable|date=1868|publisher=George Routledge and Sons|location=London|isbn=978-1-172-82780-0|page=41|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vGMJAAAAIAAJ|access-date=2 June 2014}}</ref>