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 Invention of the Vacuum Pump
and the First Electrical Machine - 1672

Otto von Guericke (1602 - 1686)


Otto von Guericke
(1602 - 1686)

First edition of one of the greatest books in the history of experimental physics. In Experimenta Nova, Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment at Magdeburg (illustrated by one of the double-page plates - see below), in which two hemispheres of copper were fitted together, the air evacuated, and two teams of horses set to pull them apart, which they could not do. To create the vacuum, Guericke invented the air pump, and in the series of experiments that followed he demonstrated the elasticity and weight of air.

He also constructed the first electrical generator and demonstrated electrostatic attraction and repulsion. As the Wheeler Gift catalogue remarks, 'this remarkable work on experimental philosophy ranks next to Gilbert's in the number and importance of the electrical discoveries described'.


Von Guericke's Electrical Machine

The experimental discoveries were in fact the consequence of Guericke's profound Copernican cosmological views on the nature and composition of space, which are set forth fully in this work.

 

 

Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdegurgica de Vacuo Spatio
Otto von Guericke
1672


The famous Otto Von Guericke experiment
Magdeburg, 1654.

 Dibner 55; Dibner Ten founding fathers of the electrical science pp. 11-14; Evans Epochal achievements in the history of science 30; Horblit 44; Norman catalogue 952; Parkinson pp. 112-113; Sparrow Milestones of science 90; Wheeler Gift 170


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