Born near Ravenna, Torricelli was first educated in local Jesuit schools and showed such brilliance that he was sent to Rome to study with Galileo's former student Benedetto Castelli (1578-1643). Through Castelli he first corresponded with and met Galileo, finally becoming his secretary and assistant. A few months after Galileo's death in 1642, Torricelli accepted Galileo's old position as court mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, a position he held until his own death, before his fortieth birthday.

As a scientist Torricelli became well known for his study of the motion of fluids and was declared the father of hydrodynamics by Ernst Mach. Torricelli also conducted experiments on what we now call gases, though the term was not then in use. Most notably, Torricelli settled an argument about the nature of gases and the existence of the vacuum. Aristotle believed that a vacuum could not exist...