The thermometer is an instrument for measuring temperature widespread in different professions, cooking, industry, medicine, etc. You probably have a medical or room thermometer at home. In short, generally speaking, the majority of human beings are familiar with the thermometer, you are certainly one of them. Temperature measurement specialists offer you a short course on the definition and history of the thermometer could help you better understand its usefulness, functioning and uses. Once upon a time time… The thermometer.
The great definition of the thermometer
Depending on the encyclopedia or French dictionary that you usually consult, here is what you can find to define the thermometer:
- According to Larousse, the definition of a thermometer simply says that it is a device intended for measuring temperatures.
- Robert goes further by giving a more complete definition of the thermometer: the thermometer is an instrument intended for measuring temperatures, generally through the expansion of a liquid or a gas, such as the mercury or helium thermometer. . There is also the medical thermometer which is intended to indicate body temperature.
- Wikipedia, which is more of an encyclopedia than a dictionary, offers the following definition of thermometer: the thermometer, from the ancient Greek thermós (“hot”) and metron (“measurement”), is a device which makes it possible to measure and display the temperature value. This is the field of study of thermometry. Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, the thermometer is used in different fields. The applications of professional thermometers are multiple, in meteorology, in medicine, in the kitchen, for cooking, for regulation, in industrial processes, measurement of the exterior or interior temperature of factories, etc.
THE thermometer definitions are therefore varied depending on the point of view one takes. Our experts, show you their own definition of the thermometer.
The thermometer is an instrument for measuring and reading temperature. Temperature measurement and its precision, in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit, is done via two essential components:
- a temperature sensor in which a change occurs (in the bulb of a glass mercury thermometer for example),
- a conversion tool of this change in numerical value (like the scale of a mercury-in-glass thermometer).
The thermometer is used in technology and industry to monitor processes, in meteorology, in the food industry, in medicine and in scientific research. Its use can also be domestic, in particular to check body temperature.
The history of the thermometer
If the thermometer allows us today to know how to dress or cook the Christmas turkey, in theAntiquity its ancestor the thermoscope was already observing temperature variations. In 1592, for example, Galileo worked on his own research, using his makeshift thermoscope which contained wine in a sealed glass tube. Depending on the time of day, especially when it was colder, the air took up less space and the wine level rose. Galileo's thermoscope, based on the principle of Archimedes' thrust and the expansion of matter, was born.
In 1612, Sanctorius was inspired by and diverted the work of his friend Galileo to create the medical thermoscope ; the temperature measurement is the same, with the exception that the patient must put a sealed glass ball in his mouth. Of course, these measurement systems were very inaccurate.
Forty years later, Ferdinand II de' Medici brought ethanol to the thermoscope, which he dyed red to make it visible, remaining faithful to thermoscopes, and graduated Galileo's glass tube, allowing the temperature to be quantified. The first thermometer is born.
In 1717, Gabriel Fahrenheit replaced ethanol with mercury and proposed a first temperature scale, replaced almost everywhere in the world by that of the physicist André Celsius in 1742. This temperature scale widely used, you know it having studied it in college: 100° corresponded to the freezing point of water, and 0° to its boiling point.
Today, scientists from all walks of life have created different models of thermometers (with graduation, probe or infrared thermometer or thermometer with laser sight), some thermometers are digital without contact, others with tips, etc. to meet the needs of individuals and for professionals.
You can follow all the advice from the Thermometer.fr experts to choose your thermometer, particularly depending on his characteristics.
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