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Concept
Thermometer
Summary
A thermometer is a device that measures temperature or a temperature gradient (the degree of hotness or coldness of an object). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb of a mercury-in-glass thermometer or the pyrometric sensor in an infrared thermometer) in which some change occurs with a change in temperature; and (2) some means of converting this change into a numerical value (e.g. the visible scale that is marked on a mercury-in-glass thermometer or the digital readout on an infrared model). Thermometers are widely used in technology and industry to monitor processes, in meteorology, in medicine, and in scientific research.
Temperature and Temperature measurement
Scale of temperature
While an individual thermometer is able to measure degrees of hotness, the readings on two thermometers cannot be compared unless they conform to an agreed scale. Today there is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. Internationally agreed temperature scales are designed to approximate this closely, based on fixed points and interpolating thermometers. The most recent official temperature scale is the International Temperature Scale of 1990. It extends from to approximately .
Timeline of temperature and pressure measurement technology
The thermometer was not a single invention, but a development. Various authors have, however, credited the invention of the thermometer to Hero of Alexandria (10–70 AD). Hero knew of the principle that certain substances, notably air, expand and contract and described a demonstration in which a closed tube partially filled with air had its end in a container of water. The expansion and contraction of the air caused the position of the water/air interface to move along the tube.
Temperature scales were invented before thermometers. The Roman Greek physician Galen may have conceived of the first temperature scale with a fixed point. The fixed, "neutral" point was the temperature of a mixture of equal amounts of ice and boiling water.
Official source
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