The weight of the earth's atmosphere was 5, 14h10 in the degree of 18 kgf

In 1643, Galileo Galilei's successor at the court of Grand Duke of Tuscany Italian Evangelista Torricelli invented an experiment: he filled with mercury meter glass tube soldered to the upper end and lower it down the hole into the vessel, and filled it with liquid metal. Mercury began to flow out of the tube, but not all, but only to a level of 760 mm. Why metal from the tube completely flowed into the container? Because the surface of the mercury in the vessel is pressed and prevented completely empty container - namely, air. So Torricelli was first proved that our ocean of air has a certain weight. Now we know that the presence of air such characteristics as weight, determined by the law of universal gravitation. After all, it consists of individual molecules that, like the rest of the body, are attracted to the Earth. In the "Golden Calf" lamented Bender because "every citizen pushes the column of air power in the two hundred and fourteen pounds." But the great schemer was wrong: in fact, the atmosphere presses not only on the head and shoulders, and the entire surface of the body with the force of approximately 18 ton. In general, the weight of the earth's atmosphere is 5, 14 × 1018 kg (or 5 × 04 N 1019). An attacker who wants to steal our atmosphere, for the delivery of liquefied air somewhere to itself will need 10 billion supertankers such as the largest of the existing - Norwegian Knock Nevis carrying capacity of 565 kt.

via factroom.ru