Our History
Greek philosophers Aristotle and Strato theorized about the existence of vacuum but came to the conclusion that no such thing existed in nature. Aristotle believed that air restrained motion and with the absence of air, moving objects would accelerate to infinite speeds. At 300BC the fact that these 2 great men even considered something as advanced as vacuum is a true testament to the brains capabilities. Galileo would start experimenting with the forces needed to create a vacuum in the mid 1600's and Otto von Guericke (from Germany) created an air pump, making him the first known inventor of a vacuum pump. Otto von Guericke tied two teams of eight horses to evacuated Magdeburg hemispheres which they were unable to separate (see picture above).
He also proved that a bell can not be heard in a vacuum, plants don't grow, a candle will not burn, and animals die in a vacuum.
Also in the mid 1600's Robert Boyle uses a Mercury barometer as a vacuum gauge and creates what is now known as Boyle's Law; which states that for a fixed mass of gas at a given temperature, the products of the pressure and volume is constant.
There were many discoveries over the coming centuries. Notably, in 1879 Thomas Edison invented the carbon filament incandescent vacuum lamp; and in 1886 the British Post Office in London installed 34 miles of tubes to carry mail, some with a pressure of 6.5 psi absolute.
In 1906 E. Leybold Nachfolger takes up the Gaede rotary vacuum pump for light bulb manufacturing, ushering in the modern vacuum industry.
The 1900's brought forth hundreds of advancements in vacuum technology, from Marcello Pirani's Pirani vacuum gauge and W. Voege and Rohn's thermocouple vacuum gauge, to our modern day Turbo Molecular and Dry Scroll pumps.
For more information purchase “Modern Vacuum Practice” by Nigel Harris
