88 Chem.

Educator 2000, 5, 88–91

The Thermometer—From The Feeling To The Instrument

Jaime Wisniak

Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel,

Abstract: The thermometer, as we know it today, is the result of a long trial and error process. It began with a
physiological description of temperature and evolved to the present state. The different stages in its development
reflect the state of science at the time as well as the ingenuity of scientists to realize and overcome the
shortcomings of science during each stage.

The thermometer is probably one of the first measuring is a function of the state of any system and which has the
instruments with which we become familiar; nevertheless, the characteristic of having an identical value for every system.
accurate measurement of temperature is a rather new concept, This property is called temperature. There are a number of
dating from only 150 to 250 years ago. In this work we will definitions of temperature. According to thermodynamics, it is
trace the concept of heat and cold from ancient times to its the property that determines whether a given system is in
establishment in quantitative terms and expression through the thermal equilibrium with other systems. Temperature is one of
proper instrument. the seven basic physical properties in terms of which all other
The physiological sensation of hot and cold has been with physical quantities are defined. It differs from the others by
mankind from the very beginning. Noah, in the tenth being an intensive property, whereas the other six (length,
generation after Adam, is told after he comes out of the Ark mass, time, electric current, amount of a substance, and
that the natural order before the Deluge will return: “While the luminous intensity) are extensive properties. A temperature
earth remaineth, seeding time and harvest, cold and heat, scale established according to the zeroth law is known as an
summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” empirical temperature scale. The correlation of hotter states
(Genesis 8:22). Observations of various natural and man-made with larger and positive temperatures and of colder states with
phenomena led the ancients to postulate theories that led to our lower or negative temperatures is achieved by a suitable choice
modern concepts of the nature of heat and heat transfer. of the thermometric function together with fixed thermometric
Thermometry started from the recognition of the need to points. The position of T = 0 is also arbitrary and depends on
quantify the differences more precisely than by using the same choices. Today, these ideas seem obvious and not
adjectives like hot and cold. Claudius Galen (130–201 A.D.) subject to discussion. Let us now analyze how they developed
based much of his treatment of the sick on the theory that from their crude definition in ancient times to their present
individual difference, whether of sickness and health, of body status. We will first define a thermometer simply as any class
habits, or of racial origin were in fact differences in the of instrument that measures temperature. As will be shown
proportion of the four essential qualities: heat, cold, moisture, below, temperature has usually been measured in an indirect
and dryness, as was postulated by Aristotle and other form, using a property of a substance that changes with
philosophers. Galen quantified the concept of degrees of hot temperature, like phase equilibrium, expansivity of a gas or
and cold to indicate the extent to which these qualities were liquid, electrical resistively, heat radiation, etc.
present in a body and suggested a mixture of equal bulks of We can distinguish three different stages in the development
boiling water and ice to fix a standard of neutral temperature. of the thermometer; each corresponds to a scientific barrier
According to Galen, at the neutral temperature the concepts of that had to be overcome. These stages are (1) open
hot and cold become identical. During his time, the thermometers, (2) closed thermometers, and (3) calibration.
complexion of a person was determined by the proportion in
which heat, cold, moisture, and dryness were tempered, giving Open Thermometers
origin to the word temperament. This has not changed much
from its original meaning, and temperature, which today has a The impulse to improve thermometry came largely from the
precise physical meaning, meant, until the 18th century, the study of weather [2]. The liquid-in-glass thermometer was a
tempering of the qualities in a substance [1]. meteorological instrument before it was used for chemistry and
The ancient physiological concepts of hot and cold have physics. The ancient Greeks did visualize degrees of hot and
evolved considerably in the last 2000 years. Today, we cold and performed experiments that could be considered as
formulate the idea of temperature using the Zeroth Law of the basis of a thermometer; however, it was not until the late
Thermodynamics, which states that if a system, A, is in 16th century that the first thermoscope (a thermometer without
thermal equilibrium with another system, B, and if system B is a scale) appeared. Although there are many claims to who built
in thermal equilibrium with a third system, C, then system C is the first thermoscope, most authorities attribute its invention to
also in thermal equilibrium with system A. From the zeroth the Italian scientist Galileo (1564–1642), probably in 1592.
law we go on to say that for two or more systems to be in There are independent reports of air thermoscopes invented by
thermal equilibrium there must exist an intensive property that Galileo’s medical disciple, Sanctorius (1561–1636); the

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point, white for every 10-degree mark and black for the others.
The advantage of a liquid like wine was that its expansion was
independent of air pressure. Mercury and water thermometers
were also tried by the Florentines but abandoned because their
expansion was too small. Later, this problem was overcome by
the simple solution of making thermometers with finer bores,
thereby increasing their sensitivity.
By the middle of the 18th century mercury thermometers
had superceded others because of their more uniform
expansion. An important advantage of mercury was that,
unlike other thermometric fluids, it was available in a high
state of purity. The appearance of the thermometer in the 17th
century provoked the semantic evolution of the word
temperature instead of the term temperament used by
physicians of the period; the new word takes its present
significance and replaces little by little the expression degree
of heat. It seems that in 1624 the French Jesuit Jean Leurechon
(1593–1670) was the first to introduce the word thermometer
to describe an instrument for measuring the degree of heat or
cold present in air. A Latin manuscript published in 1611 gives
the name thermoscopium to the instrument designed by
Sanctorius. The works of Taylor [1], Middleton [2], and
Brown [3] have some fascinating sketches illustrating earlier
thermometers (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Thermometers (1–5) and a hygrometer (6) of the
Accademia del Cimento. (From Middleton [2]). Calibration Scales
physician and mystical philosopher, Robert Fudd (1574–
1651); the clock maker, Cornelius Drebbel (1572–1633); and By about 1660 the spirit-in-glass thermometer had been
the engineer, Salomon de Caus [1]. The first thermometers had brought to a technically satisfactory state and the mercury-in-
the common property of being a tube of different construction glass thermometer had been tried and temporarily abandoned.
opened to the atmosphere. They either did not have a scale, or The next stage in the development was the attempt to make
they were crudely graduated with notches. They were usually thermometers universally comparable. A basic requirement of
intended for medical or meteorological purposes. The thermometers, obvious today, but not so in the Middle Ages, is
thermometers built by Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) had that different instruments must give identical readings.
blown glass bubbles of different weight; the ball that floated Manufacturing identical thermometers can solve the problem,
determined the particular level of temperature. None of the but this solution presents great difficulties in fabrication. A far
scales were comparable with other instruments or accurate more feasible method consists in rendering nonidentical
from one day to the other because of changing barometric instruments that are made comparable by a process of
conditions. The earliest air thermometer that corrected for air calibration using the concept of a fixed point or reference state
pressure seems to be the one described by Guillaume [4]. The concept of the fixed point is a practical consequence
Amontons (1663–1705) to the Académie des Sciences in of the zeroth law. If two different thermometers are put in
1702 [2]. contact with, say, ice at its normal melting point, then their
readings must reflect the fact that the two thermometers and
the ice have the same temperature and that both thermometers
Closed-Glass Liquid Thermometers
are in thermal equilibrium with the ice. For example, in the
Early on, the manufacturers of thermometers observed that 17th century Francesco Sagredo defined three fixed points to
temperature readings were affected by fluctuations in the calibrate his thermometers: the greatest summer heat, snow,
barometric pressure. Around 1654, Leopoldo (1610–1670), and a mixture of snow and salt were labeled, 360, 100, and 0
Cardinal de Medici, a cofounder with his brother, Leopold II, degrees, respectively. By the early 18th century as many as 35
of the Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiments), temperature scales had been devised, most of them based upon
made the first closed-glass liquid thermometers, known as either or both of the following two principles: (a) calibration
Florentine thermometers. These instruments consisted of a of the instrument at two temperatures and division of the
glass tube closed at one end and having a liquid reservoir of interval into equal parts and (b) calibration of the instrument at
large dimensions in the shape of a bulb at the other. The one temperature with subsequent scale division based upon the
Academy conducted extensive thermometric experiments and calculated expansion of the thermometric fluid. Once this
its members became highly skilled in the manufacture of understanding was achieved, attention was paid to
thermometers of reproducible dimensions. These standardizing scales of temperature by marking off heat levels
thermometers, widely used in France and England, were of specified natural phenomena. At first, the number of
graduated into 50, 100, or 300 degrees and used distilled reference points used was very large, and included, among
colored wine as the thermometric fluid. The instruments were others, the equilibrium temperature of ice water and various
roughly standardized by the heat of the sun and the cold of ice salts, the melting point of butter or wax, the candle flame, the
water; every degree was marked in the tube by an enamel temperature of the first night frost, the temperature of deep

© 2000 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., S1430-4171(00)02371-X, 10.1007/s00897990371a, 520088jw.pdf

cellars and mines, and even the temperature of the basement of originally taken as a fundamental reference point, but it was
the Paris Observatory (28 meters underground!) [2, 4]. As a widely adopted as such by about 1740 [2, 4]. The Fahrenheit
historical curiosity we can mention that both Galileo and scale was adopted in England and in the Low Countries but
Boyle believed that the temperature of places like deep cellars not in France, where the system proposed by Réamur
and mines, etc. remained quite constant [4]. Three other fixed prevailed. Fahrenheit thermometers manufactured after his
points were frequently used, the boiling and freezing points of death were already normalized using 32 ° for the melting point
water and the normal body temperature. The list of of ice and 212 ° for the boiling point of water.
contributors to the solution of this problem includes many of At the same time, the French scientist Rene-Antoine
the famous scientists of the period, like Robert Boyle (1627– Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757) proposed a different scale
1691), Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Isaac Newton (1642– calibrated at one temperature only with subsequent scale
1727), and Christian Huygens (1629–1695). For example, in divisions based upon the calculated expansion of the fluid in
1701 Newton suggested the use of two fixed points to the thermometer. Réaumur made many experiments to select
determine the thermometric scale. Newton labeled the melting the proper thermometric fluid and settled on spirit of wine
point of ice as 0 ° and the armpit temperature of a healthy diluted with a certain amount of water because of its large
Englishman as 12 °. On this scale water boiled at 34 °. His dilation. The dilution selected was the one that gave a dilation
thermometric fluid was linseed oil. of 80 in 1000, as heated from the temperature of freezing to
The Danish astronomer Rømer (1644–1710), discoverer of the temperature of boiling water, because 80 is a “number
the finite speed of light, is assumed to be the first to build convenient to divide in parts.” Because of this selection the
reproducible thermometers. In 1702 he proposed using two public came to believe that in the Réaumur scale water boiled
fixed points. The lower fixed point, corresponding to the at 80 °. Eventually, it became general practice to graduate the
temperature of an artificial mixture of salt, water, and ice, was Réaumur thermometer using two fixed points, the freezing
assigned the value 0 °, while the steam point was the upper point (0 °) and the boiling point of water (80 °). An interesting
fixed point and marked as 60 °. The resulting scale was point to mention is the large dimension of Réaumur’s
divided into equal increments of volume, numbered from 8 to thermometers. They had a large bulb with a diameter of 81 to
59. (Rømer took careful steps to check the uniformity of the 108 mm to which was connected a long tube (1.30 to 1.62 m)
bore by measuring the length of a mercury drop at various of 6.8 to 9.0 mm internal diameter. As he wrote in his papers
locations of the thermometer tube.) The Rømer scale was then on the subject, he did not see any reason why not to build
sexagesimal (very appropriate for an astronomer), and on it the thermometers of very large dimensions. He actually suggested
melting point of ice was 7.5 ° (changed later to 8 °). Because bulbs 13 mm in internal diameter with a tube up to 10 mm in
Rømer seldom used the upper part of the scale for his bore. The thermometers and the scale proposed by Réaumur
meteorological observations, he changed its upper reference were used in France and central Europe for well over a century
temperature to that of blood heat, labeling it 22.5 ° (as reported in spite of the decision of the French Revolution authorities to
by Fahrenheit). Rømer’s scale is important because it became adopt the decimal system. A thermometer scale similar to that
the basis of the one proposed by Fahrenheit. of Réaumur was invented in 1732 by Joseph Nicolas Delisle
Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) was born in Danzig (1688–1768), a French astronomer who had been invited to
and lived most of his life in Holland. In 1708 he visited Rømer Russia by Peter the Great. In that year he built a thermometer
and borrowed from him the idea of calibrating thermometers that used mercury as a working fluid. Delisle chose his scale
using the melting point of ice and the heat of blood as fixed using the temperature of boiling water as the fixed point and
points. The original thermometers of Fahrenheit used alcohol the number of hundred-thousandths of the volume mercury
as the thermometric fluid, but later he switched to mercury. At contracted at lower temperatures. The thermometers usually
the beginning Fahrenheit used the scale of Rømer, except that had 2,400 graduations, appropriate to the winter in St.
he added four more divisions to each degree. Later on, he Petersburg where Delisle lived. In 1738 Josias Weitbrecht
decided that the values of the fixed points in the Rømer scale (1702–1747) recalibrated the Delisle thermometer with 0 ° as
were inconvenient and awkward, and he multiplied them by the boiling point and 150 ° as the freezing point of water. The
four to give 30 ° for the normal ice point and 90 ° for body Delisle thermometer remained in use for almost 100 years in
temperature. Later, he decided that 96 ° would be a more Russia [4].
suitable body temperature because it would be divisible by 12 Several attempts to transform the Delisle scale to a 100-
(and by 32). Soon afterwards, Fahrenheit developed a degree interval were made before the Swedish astronomer
thermometer to measure boiling points at atmospheric pressure Anders Celsius (1701–1744) proposed in 1741 to graduate
and found the boiling point of water to be 212 °. He, therefore, thermometers with 100 ° as the boiling point of water and 0 °
modified his scale to include the boiling point of water as the as the melting point of snow. Apparently wishing to avoid the
upper fixed point at 212 °. In order to give a more rational use of negative numbers for commonly encountered
180 ° interval between the two fixed points, he made the ice meteorological temperatures, Celsius assigned the number 100
point 32 ° at 1 atm pressure. Body temperature is around 98.4 to the freezing point of water and zero to the boiling point,
° on this final version of the Fahrenheit scale. The excellent dividing the intervening distance into 100 equal degrees. In
quality of the thermometers manufactured by Fahrenheit 1745 his friend Carl Linnaeus inverted the scale to give us the
gained him admission to the Royal Society of London. There now-familiar centigrade scale that matches the psychological
he announced in 1724 that he had constructed thermometers in feeling that hotter should correspond to a higher temperature.
which he had fixed 32 °F as the freezing point of water and 96 The general use of the Celsius scale in the 19th century was
°F as normal body temperature. In this way he used a much probably accelerated by the decision of the French Revolution
finer scale than Rømer’s original. It is interesting to note that, authorities to adopt the decimal system for all measurable
although the boiling point of water is 212 °F, it was not quantities. The Commission of Weights and Measures, created

© 2000 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., S1430-4171(00)02371-X, 10.1007/s00897990371a, 520088jw.pdf

by the French Assembly, decided in 1794 that the thermometers (around 350 °C). Gas thermometers can be of
thermometric degree will be 1/100 of the distance between the two kinds: (a) constant-pressure thermometers that rely on
ice point and steaming water (originating the word centigrade). volumetric measurement and (b) constant-volume
In October 1948 the IX Conference of Weights and Measures thermometers based on pressure measurement. Extensive
assigned the name degree Celsius to this unit. experimentation, performed first by Henri Regnault (1810–
The quality of the thermometer depends largely on the 1878) and then by Pierre Chapuis, moved the standard of gas
quality of the glass from which it is made. This fact had been thermometry from an error of 0.1 °C to around 0.02 °C. In
common knowledge since the appearance of the Florentine 1927 the General Conference on Weights and Measures
thermometers. Fahrenheit recommended that to attain the best decided upon the first International Practical Temperature
comparability different thermometers should be constructed of Scale (IPTS) by comparing the results of the long story of
the same class of glass. The small thermal expansion of practical thermometry with the half-century-old thermo-
mercury thermometers makes the instrument very sensitive to dynamic scale. Because of subsequent improvements in
the thermal behavior of glass. Inferior glass has a considerable measurements and techniques, the IPTS of 1927 has been
thermal lag; that is, the volume change lags behind the constantly updated through 1990 (IPTS-90, currently used).
temperature change reaching its final value only after several The IPTS-68 recognizes the thermodynamic temperature as the
hours. Already in 1880 it was recommended that glasses basic temperature and defines its unit (the kelvin) to be
containing lead oxide should be avoided. Glass also exhibits 1/273.16 of the triple point of water. The triple point
volume hysteresis; that is, its own volume depends not only on temperature depends solely on the purity of the substance
its present temperature but also on its past thermal history used, and is, in this respect, superior to the ice and steam
(during heating, the readings for a given temperature will be points that depend not only on the purity but also on their
different than those for the same temperature when cooling). A pressure being held exactly at one atmosphere. On this basis,
glass thermometer heated to a high temperature and then the size of the degree does not change owing to new and better
cooled and placed in an ice bath seemingly comes immediately measurements. The present choice assures that 1 degree on the
to equilibrium; however, the bulb continues to shrink, Kelvin scale is nearly equal to one degree on the Celsius scale,
gradually causing a corresponding rise of the ice point. This is the difference being so slight that even quite sensitive
called zero-point creep. This progressive change of the ice instruments cannot detect it.
point represents an asymptotic approach to some limiting bulb
volume and, depending on the quality of the glass, may go on Other Thermometers
for a very long time. To illustrate this point we can mention
that Joule (1818–1889) kept records for 40 years of the zero Other useful forms of thermometry have been developed on
point of his thermometers. In 1844 he marked the freezing the basis of electrical phenomena. Temperature measurements
point of water as zero on a very accurate thermometer made by using thermocouples are based on the Seebeck effect that
Dancer. Then, up to 1882, he determined the freezing point of establishes that an electric current flows in a continuous circuit
water several times and noted that it has risen steadily up to of two different metallic wires if the two junctions are at
0.61 °C. When the thermometer was last examined in 1930, different temperatures. The resistance thermometer is based on
the creep was still in progress and had reached 0.67 °C. It was the property that the electrical resistance of a metal changes
noted that the rate of rise had initially been rapid, but was when it undergoes a change in temperature. The well-known
slowing down and, it could be inferred, would ultimately be platinum resistance thermometer was studied and perfected in
undetectable. Unfortunately, Joule’s thermometers were 1886 by Callendar. It found immediate wide use and now is
destroyed during an air raid in 1942. Although modern borax the prime standard thermometer between 259 °C and +630 °C.
glasses are a great improvement over earlier glasses, they still
exhibit creep. Zero-point creep renders the fixed points, and Conclusion
hence the whole scale of liquid-in-glass thermometers,
uncertain and so precludes them as standards [5]. The thermometer, as we know it today, is the result of a long
The demand for greater accuracy along with problems trial and error process that began with a physiological
related to thermometric construction forced scientists to devise description of temperature and evolved to the present state of
alternative techniques for measuring temperature. Deformation the art. The different stages in its development reflect the state
thermometers were an early choice. They indicate a change in of science at the time, as well as the ingenuity of scientists to
temperature by a change in the shape or configuration of solid realize and overcome the shortcomings of the state of science
bodies. Thermometers based on the expansion of metal rods at each stage.
were tried as early as 1735 and led to the development of
bimetallic instruments by the end of the 18th century. These References and Notes
instruments function on the principle that the difference of
1. Taylor, F. S. Ann. Sci. 1942, 5, 129–156.
expansion of two metal strips welded together produces a
bending that can activate a pointer on a dial calibrated against 2. Middleton, W. E. K. A History of the Thermometer and its Use in
Meteorology; John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1966.
a standard mercury thermometer. Their invention greatly
simplified the design of metallic thermometers, making them 3. Brown, E. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1934, 11, 448–453.
more compact and more sensitive. 4. Barnett, M. K. Osiris 1956, 12, 269–341.
Gas thermometers (based on Charles’ law) can also be used 5. Cardwell, D. S. L. James Joule—A Biography; Manchester
to measure temperatures higher than the upper limit of mercury University Press: Manchester, 1989.

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