Dec 16, 2009
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...
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