Among his other achievements was the discovery of the "Joule-Thomson Effect" of gases and his work on the first transatlantic telegraph cable for which he was knighted , and his inventing of the mirror galvanometer used in cable signaling, the siphon recorder, the mechanical tide predictor, an improved ship's compass. Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron Mathematician and physicist, one of the leading physical scientists and greatest teachers of his time. Biography of Lord Kelvin It was from his father that William learn mathematics and at a very young age he became an accomplished mathematician with knowledge of the latest developments in the subject.
A whimsical site that promotes an admiration for Lord Kelvin and his ideas. Subscribe to the Newsletter Name Email. Important disclaimer information about this About site. Depression Self-Test Vitamins for Depression? Most Popular Articles. Latest Articles. See Online Courses. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now! All Topics Email Article. All rights reserved. Early History The first thermometers were called thermoscopes and while several inventors invented a version of the thermoscope at the same time, Italian inventor Santorio Santorio was the first inventor to put a numerical scale on the instrument.
Galileo Galilei invented a rudimentary water thermometer in which, for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured. In , Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first mercury thermometer, the modern thermometer.
English physician, Sir Thomas Allbutt invented the first medical thermometer used for taking the temperature of a person in David Phillips invented the infra-red ear thermometer in In the early 17th century, during the the Scientific Revolution, when the frontiers of discovery were marked by new ways to quantify natural phenomena, Galileo Galilei was forging new, innovative and empirically based methods in astronomy, physics and engineering.
He also got humanity started toward a lesser known but crucial advance: the ability to measure heat. During this era, a flurry of measuring devices and units of measurement were invented, eventually forging the standard units we have in place today. Galileo is credited with the invention of the thermoscope, a device for gauging heat. Around , with a name so nice he used it twice, Venetian scholar Santorio Santorio made crucial conceptual advances to the thermoscope.
The early thermoscopes basically consisted of a vertically oriented glass tube with a bulb at the top and a base suspended in a pool of liquid such as water, which ran up a length of the column. As the temperature of the air in the bulb increased, its expansion changed the height of the liquid in the column. He may even have been the first to apply the thermometer to the field of medicine , as a device for objectively comparing body temperatures.
To take a measurement, the patient would either hold the bulb with their hand or breathe on it. He was so into measuring heat that in he started a private academy, the Accademia del Cimento, where investigators explored various forms and shapes for their thermoscopes, including ornate-looking designs with spiraling cylindrical columns.
Yet even with this improved functionality, accurate temperature measurement had quite a ways to go. There was still no accepted standard for calibration. It was a mess. In he had the idea to calibrate a scale relative to something much more accessible: the freezing and boiling points of water. Similar to the way we measure minutes within an hour, the range could be divided between these points into 60 degrees.
Awkwardly, since he had originally used frozen brine as the lower-end calibration point, his measurement of the freezing point of water occurred at 7. As interest in thermoscopes continued to grow throughout Europe, a young merchant discovered that the instruments were becoming an increasingly popular trading commodity.
This scale was based on a scale of zero to one hundred where the freezing point of water is zero, the boiling point of water is degrees and normal body temperature is 37 degrees. The first real medical thermometer was invented by Sir Thomas Allbut in For almost a hundred years thermometers were basically unchanged. They contained alcohol or mercury and were considered to be very accurate.
More modern thermometers were developed after World War II that used infrared technology and placed in the ear.
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