Mersenne

Mersenne wanted to assess Galileo’s claims by getting the facts straight; this turned out to be very far from straightforward because establishing facts depends upon instruments, even instruments as simple as measuring sticks, which have to be standardized.

The status of experimentation was changing; and Pascal and Mersenne made every effort to bring this about.

Publication was important within this group, but no more important than private and semi-public correspondence: Mersenne wrote letters to Italy, Poland, Sweden and Holland announcing Pascal’s Puy-de-Dôme experiment.

It is also significant that Mersenne’s friends collaborated without agreeing with each other.

Mersenne died in 1648, and little further progress in research on the vacuum was made in France.