Abstract
SUMMARY. — It is generally assumed that the 17th-century works about air and its properties were produced during two periods. The first, begun by Torricelli, led to Pascal's barometric experiments in 1648. Taking its findings into account, air's elasticity and Boyle-Mariotte's law were discovered during the second one, in 1662 and 1676. In this article I show that Pierre Gassendi, who was active during the first period, took a now forgotten, crucial step in the scientific elaboration of the notion of air's elastic pressure. His rather unusual conception of atomism, absent from Pascal's vision, enabled him to think of air's compressibility and its elastic pressure as early as the end of 1648. The presence, both implicit and explicit, of this thinking in the intellectual contexts of Mariotte in France and Boyle in England justifies viewing Gassendi's works as an essential link between Pascal and Boyle-Mariotte 's law.
Published Version
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