The first recorded thermometer was produced by the Italian, Santorio Santorio (1561-1636) who was one of a group of Venetian scientists working at the end of the Sixteenth Century. As with many inventions the thermometer came about through the work of many scientists and was improved upon by many others.
The thermometer, a tool used to measure temperature, operates on the principle that substances expand when heated. In the second century B.C., Philo of Byzantium, an ancient Greek engineer, made crude thermometers, or “thermoscopes.” In 1592, Italian mathematician and astronomer (a scientist specializing in the study of matter in outer space) Galileo (1564-1642) crafted a type of simple thermometer that measured changes in air pressure as well as temperature. The first air thermometer (a device in which a colored liquid was driven down by the expansion of air), which measured the body’s temperature change during illness and recovery, was produced by Italian scientist Santorio Santorio (1561-1636) in 1612. It was not until 1713 that German physicist (a scientist specializing in the interaction between matter and energy) Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) began developing a thermometer that had a…
• 1593 – Galileo Galilei (Italy): First water thermometer. • 1714 – Gabriel Fahrenheit (Germany): First mercury thermometer with Fahrenheit scale. • 1743 – Andrus Celsius (Sweden): Invented Celsius scale mercury thermometer. • 1848 – Lord William Thomson Kelvin (Scotland): Creator of the Kelvin Scale (measurement of hot and cold absolute extremes, for example absolute zero is -273C). Humidity Measurement: Who invented the hygrometer? • 1400s – Leonardo da Vinci (Italy): First primitive hygrometer. • 1664 – Francesco Folli (Italy): First practical hygrometer. • 1783 – Horace Bénédict de Saussure (Switzerland): Invented a hygrometer that uses human hair to measure humidity. • 1820 – John Frederic Daniell (Britain): First dew point hygrometer using electrical resistance. Pressure Measurement: Who invented the barometer? • 1644 – Evangelista Torricelli (Italy): invented an instrument called the Torricelli tube, a 4 ft long glass tube containing mercury inverted into a dish, used for experi
While the Greeks made simple thermometers (instruments for measuring temperature) as early as the first century B.C., Italian astronomer (a scientists specializing in the study of the stars, planets, and heavenly bodies) Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) is credited with inventing the modern thermometer. Called an air thermometer, it was a device in which a colored liquid was driven down by the expansion of air. As the air got warmer and expanded, the liquid dropped. In 1612 Italian physician Santorio Santorio (1561–1636), a friend of Galileo, adapted the device to measure the body’s change in temperature due to illness. A century later, in 1714, German physicist Daniel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) invented the mercury (a metallic element) thermometer. Thermometers in use today, contain liquid mercury, which rises as it gets warmer. Further Information:History of the Thermometer….
