Giovanni Battista Venturi is an Italian scientist born in 1746. Venturi was "fascinated by the history of science as [.. well as] by its application," and was "one of the first to call attention to Leonardo Da Vinci's ‘work as a scientist and engineer" (2). He was also the first to note the effects of constricted channels on fluid flow (1).
Giovanni Venturi's primary expertise was in fluid dynamics and hydraulic engineering. He built on “the work performed by David Bernoulli and Leonard Euler”(2). Venturi discovered that when fluid goes into a constricted area of a pipe, the fluid’s velocity increases and its static pressure decreases. If the velocity stayed constant, rather than increasing, then weird things would happen to the matter present in the pipe, breaking the law of the conservation of matter. Meanwhile, if the pressure stayed constant, rather than decreasing, then the kinetic energy produced by the velocity would not follow the law of conservation of energy, again causing physics problems.
By 1769, 23-year-old Giovanni Venturi was ordained and became a professor. In 1774, he was appointed as professor of geometry and philosophy at the University of Modena. (2) In 1778, he was promoted to Professor of experimental physics. During his tenure, he was also the state engineer and state auditor for the Duke of Modena, as well as ducal mathematician. He “served in many diplomatic appointments on France & Switzerland” and met with fellow scientists there. He retired in 1813, “but continued to publish his own works and compile works of other famous scientists until his death in 1822.” (2)
The Venturi effect is something we use to this day. For example, a Venturi nozzle can generate a velocity high enough and a pressure low enough to draw a vacuum.
[Edited June 30 2022 for clarity]
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