Venturi, Giovanni Battista

Born Sept. 11, 1746, in Bibbiano; died Sept. 10, 1822, in Reggio Emilia. Italian scientist.

From 1773, Venturi was a professor at the University of Modena and then at Pavia. His best-known works are in the area of hydraulics. In 1797 he published a study in French on the flow of water through short cylindrical and branching tubes (venturi tubes). In 1887 the American scientist C. Herschel proposed a water meter named for Venturi. Venturi’s pipe for measuring speed in air and water currents and for creating a vacuum in aviational gyroscopes is well known. Venturi was also concerned with color theory and some questions of optics. In 1798 he wrote an essay about the introduction of the decimal system of measures and weights into Italy.