
The fantasy was that he had found something of fundamental importance to
one of the hot questions of the day ('77).  He really had very little
reason to believe it, other than raw hope.  By fantasy, I certainly don't
mean Velikovskian manias.


I'm not familiar with the history of this experiment, although, arguably,
I should be.


I think that it is enough if his contemporaries found the result surprising.
That's not what I'd quibble about.  What I'd like to know are Toricelli's
reasons for doing his experiment; not the post hoc _constructed_ reasons,
but the thoughts in his head as he considered the problem.  It may be
impossible to know much about Toricelli's thoughts; that's too bad if
it is so.  One of Root-Bernstein's services to science is that he has gone
rooting about in Pasteur's and Fleming's (and other people's) notes, and has
discovered some surprising clues about their motivations.  Pasteur never
publicly admitted his plan to create mirror-image life, but the dreams are
right there in his notebooks (finally public after many years), ready for
anyone to read.  And I and my friends often have the most ridiculous
reasons for pursuing results; one of my best came because I was mad at
a colleague for a poorly-written claim (I disproved the claim).

Of course, Toricelli's case may be an example of a rarety: where the
fantasy not only motivates the experiment, but turns out to be right
in the end.

Mark