Talk:Galileo thermometer

INVENTOR
So, who invented this thing? Shouldn't that be a BASIC piece of information provided by the article?190.193.201.215 (talk) 04:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * So far as I can tell, it was on sale from the Natural History Museum in London in 1993 - I can find no earlier reference. It is totally different from Galileo's thermometer.Chemical Engineer (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Minor Edit
Changed "How to tell time with a Galilean Thermometer" to "How to read temperature with a Galilean Thermometer:" Also, it states that as temperature increases density increases... this is incorrect! Absolutecaliber 01:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Question not answered. I have the condition that one day the bulbs are all in a sequence at the top of the glass and then later on they are all at the bottom. No gap so how do you read the temperature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Froglips (talk • contribs) 23:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Invented by Galileo?
I think this page definitely needs to mention spongebob as the inventor. Apathetic 18:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If that is true, then yes, I very much agree, and it should be within the first few seentances, if not in the first. Does anyone know if Galileo actually invented the thermometer, or if he just discovered the principles that allowed some other person to invent the actual device???


 * I don't know how to edit the very top part of the page or the redirect, or I would. . . but Galileo did not invent the Galileo thermometer, he invented something called the thermoscope. Which this article erroneously states is the same thing.  The thermoscope couldn't tell temperature, it could only  (as is mentioned in another post on this page) show the change in density of water to show that temperature CHANGED.  The modern day Galileo thermometer is nominally based on that thermoscope.  An old thermoscope image is here http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/Thermoscope.html

I would happily write up a correct thermoscope article should anyone let me know how to get rid of the redirect on that page.

71.163.210.209 (talk) 13:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)KC


 * No, Galileo did not invent this, it is named after him.Chemical Engineer (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The answer may be in this paper:
 * American Journal of Physics -- September 1989 -- Volume 57, Issue 9, pp. 845
 * A thermometer based on Archimedes’ principle
 * George D. Nickas
 * Department of Physics, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York 14850
 * but I'm not paying $30 to find out. Perhaps someone has who has access to the journal can help us out. --Heron (talk) 18:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. There is also a paper called Das Galilei-Thermometer / Termometro Lento (in German) that mentions some old examples in museums.


 * The edits seem to indicate this was resolved. But I wanted to close the loop on this comment thread.
 * The Am J Phys article only says "The original idea of the device is attributed to Galileo, although a search of his writings failed to substantiate this claim".
 * But is more informative.  It states Middleton's "A History of the Thermometer" credits the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II (of the Medici family) for the invention and "later adduces evidence dating it to in or before 1641". --Karnesky (talk) 20:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Mass of glass bulb
I'm not signed up for this site but i would really like to know is what the mass is for one of those glass bulbs that hold the different amounts of liquid? Does any one know?

Misc. comments
Wow, people! Hi. At my school, we had to research an invention that involved math. I chose the Galileo thermometer as my invention, and it is really cool! It even led my dad to buy me one! Galileo thermometers may seem a bit (okay, maybe really) boring, but for people like me, it's, well, totally awesome. I don't want people to think i'm a geek or anything, but hey, science is cool.

--KiraNerrice 03:01, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How it really works
The basic facts in the previous dicussio,n are correct, but the conclusions are wrong!

The Galileo Thermometer actually measures pressure in the first instance, the pressure being caused by the change in ambient temperature.

The AIR in the top of the sealed container is heated by the outside temperature and it expands, applying pressure to the surface of the liquid, which is incompressible. This in turn compresses the oval floats which then start to sink because of their increased density. (their weight stays constant but their volume decreases)

To demonstrate this, take a thermometer, ensure it is stable and then wrap a piece of ice in a wet cloth and hold it against the glass where the air is. The air will cool down and the floats will begin to rise. There will not have been time or sufficient energy outflow to change the liquid temperature.


 * Afraid not. Buoyancy has to do with relative densities, and since most fluids are relatively incompressible, more or less pressure at the surface is not going to change the density of the liquid or the bulb. Of course, if the bulbs were not sealed on the underside, and had some air on the inside, their effective density would change with a change of pressure at the surface and they would rise or sink. There used to be some toy like that, where the position of a diving man was controlled by pressure on a flexible membrane. Paul venter 14:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
Any chance of getting this page partially locked? There seem to be an odd number of random vandals about. -SabineLaGrande 07:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Missing logic.
Although the statement comes close to reflecting the logic of the operation of the thermometer does it or should it include the following.

"As the temperature of the solution in the thermometer increses, the density decreases, and the weight of the water displaced by the floating piece also decreases. Eventually passed a certian point, when the weight of the water displaced becomes  less than the weight of the float, then it will sink.  The converse also holds true.

This is an example of a relative/absolute truth.

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 22:15, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

In the second paragraph, the article states, "that the density of a liquid changes in proportion to its temperature". At least change this to "that the density of a liquid changes in inverse proportion to its temperature" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.91.165 (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

More?
Can you please put in more history in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.14.219.223 (talk) 17:03, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thermoscope
What we now call a Galileo thermometer is quite different from his thermoscope.

See http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/thermometer.html for a picture of a thermoscope.Chemical Engineer (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added a dubious tag to the claim that the Galileo Thermometer is, in fact, a thermoscope in the introduction. It seems to me that even if it is a thermoscope, it is also a thermometer. The thermometer article certainly claims it is, at least.Forbes72 (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

ARTICLE NEEDS SERIOUS WORK
This Wiki really surprised me, as far as it's length it seems about right. But it is structured incorrectly, the explanation of how the Water Thermometer works is entirely to long and despite the very lengthy explanation, it is accurate but not a good explanation. It also is not a Theory, we know how it works. I am quite surprised this Wiki has not been attacked by the usual suspects who hit nearly every scientific Wiki I have ever read, you know, the guys that comb over every word, punctuation, required structure, etc. If you don't know what I mean you don't visit many Wiki Discussions. Unlike the usual suspects I'm not into this part of it enough to "report" this Wiki for review or whatever other threat they use, but this Wiki should be cleaned up and restructured. Two sections is not the norm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.17.209.222 (talk) 16:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC) Edit: I am not trying to be harsh here, and only just realized having closed the edit and read the status of this Wiki, i.e. Start Class and must thank those that started this, it just needs refinement and perhaps this should be mentioned. If those that started this could look at some long term Wiki's for guidance it might benefit us all. This is a perfect example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermometer. If you look in the revisions,(View History) this thing has been slowly molded and shaped into it's present form, yet as late as 25 February 2010 Thegreatdr (one of the Usual Suspects)knocked the Wiki down from Class B to Class C because of it's structure. It seems a never ending process.

Figures
Although it can be illustrated both ways, I believe the figures would be more clear if the vapor space inside the hollow objects were drawn clear (white) rather than blue which implies there is liquid inside the object. Figure 2, for instance, would look like it were displacing the blue liquid if drawn without the blue rectangle within the green object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.99.19.8 (talk) 17:19, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The figures demonstrating Archimedes' Principle are incorrectly labeled. The floating/sinking masses should be labeled by density, not mass. I.e., a 1 Kg mass will not necessarily float in a 1.001 Kg/L fluid, but a 1 Kg/L density will float in a 1.001 Kg/L fluid. -R.L. Topp, 1 Apr 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.45.216.254 (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Consistency
I find it confusing that we have conflicting statements. in the article on Galileo Galilei it mentions under 'career as a scientist' that he 'created a grossly inaccurate thermoscope', and links to this page. In this page it mentions that it is simply a namesake, which is a bit confusing. I think someone should fix this. Carnivorousfungi (talk) 12:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I have corrected the Galileo entry, which was in any case poorly phrased as well as incorrect.Chemical Engineer (talk) 15:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Impression
The Dutch Wikipedia gives the impression that Galileo invented the only accurate thermometer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.7.192.143 (talk) 13:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Details
I think that this Galileo thermometer works mainly because of the small expansion coefficients of glass relative to whatever liquid is used in the tube. Sealed glass bulbs of fixed mass and approximately fixed shape regardless of temperature and pressure would rise to top or drop to the bottom depending on the temperature-dependent density and therefore pressure gradient of the liquid. Finer details as to the position of a bulb that becomes suspended between surface and bottom may reflect (1) the slight dependence of the bulb shape on temperature and pressure and (2) the deviation from linearity in the pressure increase in the liquid from top to bottom.David in Cincinnati (talk) 15:19, 11 December 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by David in Cincinnati (talk • contribs) 15:16, 11 December 2019 (UTC)