A natural philosopher who served as the mayor of Magdeburg, Germany, Otto von Guericke, b. Nov. 20, 1602, d. May 11, 1686, demonstrated experimentally the capacity of the atmosphere to do work and decisively refuted the long-held notion that it was impossible for a vacuum to exist. Using hollow copper spheres and an air pump of his own construction, Guericke demonstrated that a partial vacuum could be created by pumping the air out of the sphere. He also proved that the air remaining in the sphere (at a pressure below that of the atmosphere) was distributed evenly throughout the vessel.
In 1657, Guericke carried out his famous demonstration that several teams of horses could not pull apart two joined hemispheres when the air within had been evacuated. Using a piston in a cylinder, he also showed that when a vacuum was created on one side of the piston, the atmosphere would move the piston and a considerable mass through a distance, thus performing work. This became the basic principle of the Newcomen steam engine (1712).
Last modified on: Friday, October 17, 1997.