PASCAL, Blaise.

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Traitez de l'equilibre des liqueurs, et de la pesanteur de la masse de l'air. First edition of the work that codified the principles of hydrostatics, including the first statement of "Pascal's Law" and the first indication of the relationship between barometric pressure and atmospheric changes. For this, Pascal has been credited with experimentally disproving the long-standing belief that nature abhors a vacuum.The Traitez synthesises all the major previous work on hydrostatics, including contributions by Galileo and Torricelli, and develops it via the comprehensive application of 17th-century empiricism. "For their synthetic treatment of the subject, clarity, and rigour, the Traitez are indisputably a classic of 17th-century science" (DSB). Many of the experiments were performed in the 1640s and the work itself was complete by 1654, but it was not published until the year after Pascal's death.

• Printing: first

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