Question

Who invented the mercurial barometer?

Answer 1

Given the amount of times students have spilled mercury over the laboratory, it was probably Lucifer himself.

Explanation:

To be serious, the mercury barometer was invented in the 17th century by Evangelista Torricelli; we still call a `mm` `Hg` `1` `"Torr"` in his honour. Of course, we could use other liquids than mercury to measure pressure. The advantage of mercury is that the stuff is so dense that `1` `"atm"` pressure will support a column of mercury only `"760"` `mm` tall, whereas if we used a water column it would be approx. `10` `m` in height.