Abstract

This paper describes the work of mathematicians during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the pressure-height problem of determining the relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude. Omitting minor contributions by many other mathematicians, the paper describes the work of Pascal (atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude), E. Mariotte (height increases in geometric progression as pressure decreases in arithmetic progression), E. Halley (the use of logarithms), John Wallace, G.W. Leibniz, Jacques Cassini, Daniel Bernoulli, Pierre Bouguer, J.H. Lambert, G. Fontana, J.A. DeLuc, S. Horsley, J. Playfair, and P.S. Laplace whose formula summarized previous results.

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