Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15450

    Weighing of glass canes and cylinder of mercury

    Date
    12 November 1662
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p3
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 210mm
    width (page): 151mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Vacuum physics
          > Pneumatics
    Description
    This image is part of William Brouncker's original account of the third experiment made by Jonathan Goddard, at the Royal Society meeting in 29 October 1662. Goddard's experiment concerns the weight of air, incumbent upon A, against the weight of a cylinder of quicksilver BC.

    Copies of this image can be found at RBO/1/196, RBC/1/200 and MS/776/183.
    Transcription
    Because the aer incumbent upon A is equal in weight to the Cilinder of Quicksilver BC, therefore the Quicksilver keeps at that altitude above AB. And because the whole cane & quicksilver ABCD is hanging at D and becuase the cilinder of BC is counterballanced by the aer upon A; therefore at D is the weight of the whole cane, Quicksilver & Aer.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 29 October 1662, ‘Dr. Goddard proposed the third of his experiments, of weighing glass canes with the cylinder of mercury in them; which shewed, as he observed, that the tube and the quicksilver weighed as much, notwithstanding the pressure of the air, that should put them in aequilibrio, as they would have done being weighed in a pair of scales apart. The lord viscount Brouncker was desired to give his thoughts upon it’ (Birch 1:119).

    On 5 November 1662, ‘The lord viscount Brouncker brought his solution of Dr. Goddard’s third mercurial experiment; and the amanuensis was ordered to draw the figure of it in great, against the next meeting’ (Birch 1:120).

    On 12 November 1662, ‘The lord viscount Brouncker’s solution of Dr. Goddard’s third experiment was read, and found satisfactory, and ordered to be registered’ (Birch 1:124).
    Related fellows
    William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker of Lyons (1620 - 1684, British) , Mathematician
    Jonathan Goddard (1612 - 1675, British) , Physician, Physician
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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