Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.16162

    Instrument for mercury experiments

    Date
    October 1661
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p149v
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 210mm
    width (page): 166mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Figure of a bent glass tube with mercury, with its ends in vessels of water at different heights. The text is in Henry Power's hand, and is written as an objection against the funicular hypothesis of Franciscus Linus, or Line (1595-1675). Power was arguing in favour of Robert Boyle's theory that the pressure of a gas increases when the volume of the container it is held in decreases (now known as Boyle's law).
    Object history
    Henry Power, Experimental philosophy, in three books containing new experiments microscopical, mercurial, magnetical: with some deductions, and probable hypotheses, raised from them, in avouchment and illustration of the now famous atomical hypothesis (London: Printed by T. Roycroft, for John Martin and James Allestry, 1664).
    Related fellows
    Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691, British) , Natural philosopher
    Henry Power (1623 - 1668, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
    <The World>
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          > United Kingdom
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