SIR WILLIAM EDEN, father of Anthony and an irritable watercolourist, once flung his barometer into the garden when it indicated sunshine during a shower. ‘Look for yourself, you fool,’ he cried. Barometers, once tapped reflexively when setting off on a walk, are largely unacknowledged instruments, yet their predictions have saved countless lives at sea and, after morphing into altimeters, made modern flying possible.
Aristotle thought that air had no weight. In 1645, however, Italian scientist Evangelista Torricelli invented the first barometer, which demonstrated how atmospheric pressure (weight of air) supported a column of mercury in a glass tube. Increases in column height mean that air pressure has risen, usually indicating fair weather; if it falls, then wind and storms are on the way. This is because air moves, as wind, from areas of high pressure to low, sometimes extremely fast.
この記事は Country Life UK の September 27, 2023 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は Country Life UK の September 27, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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