page_title: Thermometer
section_title: Thermometric materials
hierarchical_section_title: Thermometer / Physical principles of thermometry / Thermometric materials
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Backofenthermometer
context_page_description: A thermometer is a device that measures temperature or a temperature gradient. A thermometer has two important elements: a temperature sensor in which some change occurs with a change in temperature; and some means of converting this change into a numerical value. Thermometers are widely used in technology and industry to monitor processes, in meteorology, in medicine, and in scientific research.
  Some of the principles of the thermometer were known to Greek philosophers of two thousand years ago. The Italian physician Santorio Santorio is commonly credited with the invention of the first thermometer, but its standardisation was completed through the 17th and 18th centuries.
context_section_description: There are various kinds of empirical thermometer based on material properties.
  Many empirical thermometers rely on the constitutive relation between pressure, volume and temperature of their thermometric material. For example, mercury expands when heated.
  If it is used for its relation between pressure and volume and temperature, a thermometric material must have three properties:
  (1) Its heating and cooling must be rapid. That is to say, when a quantity of heat enters or leaves a body of the material, the material must expand or contract to its final volume or reach its final pressure and must reach its final temperature with practically no delay; some of the heat that enters can be considered to change the volume of the body at constant temperature, and is called the latent heat of expansion at constant temperature; and the rest of it can be considered to change the temperature of the body at constant volume, and is called the specific heat at constant volume. Some materials do not have this property, and take some time to distribute the heat between temperature and volume change.
  (2) Its heating and cooling must be reversible. That is to say, the material must be able to be heated and cooled indefinitely often by the same increment and decrement of heat, and still return to its original pressure, volume and temperature every time. Some plastics do not have this property;
  (3) Its heating and cooling must be monotonic. That is to say, throughout the range of temperatures for which it is intended to work,
  (a) at a given fixed pressure,
  either (α) the volume increases when the temperature increases, or else (β) the volume decreases when the temperature increases;
  but not (α) for some temperatures and (β) for others; or
  (b) at a given fixed volume,
  either (α) the pressure increases when the temperature increases, or else (β) the pressure decreases when the temperature increases;
  but not (α) for some temperatures and (β) for others.
  At temperatures around about 4 °C, water does not have the property (3), and is said to behave anomalously in this respect; thus water cannot be used as a material for this kind of thermometry for temperature ranges near 4 °C.
  Gases, on the other hand, all have the properties (1), (2), and (3)(a)(α) and (3)(b)(α). Consequently, they are suitable thermometric materials, and that is why they were important in the development of thermometry.
caption: Bi-metallic thermometer for cooking and baking in an oven
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