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    Bulb Thermometers

    Uploaded by

    dinandx
    This document discusses how a basic bulb thermometer works. It relies on the principle that liquids expand when heated and contract when cooled. A bulb thermometer contains liquid, usually mercury, in a bulb with a narrow tube. When the bulb is heated, the liquid expands and rises up the tube, allowing the user to read the temperature. The document then provides instructions for making a simple water-based bulb thermometer at home using common household items. However, it notes that a sealed glass thermometer with mercury works better, as it can measure a wider temperature range and respond faster to temperature changes. Finally, it briefly explains how thermometers are calibrated using the freezing and boiling points of water under the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Bulb Thermometers

    Uploaded by

    dinandx
    72 views3 pages
    This document discusses how a basic bulb thermometer works. It relies on the principle that liquids expand when heated and contract when cooled. A bulb thermometer contains liquid, usually mercury, in a bulb with a narrow tube. When the bulb is heated, the liquid expands and rises up the tube, allowing the user to read the temperature. The document then provides instructions for making a simple water-based bulb thermometer at home using common household items. However, it notes that a sealed glass thermometer with mercury works better, as it can measure a wider temperature range and respond faster to temperature changes. Finally, it briefly explains how thermometers are calibrated using the freezing and boiling points of water under the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales

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    This document discusses how a basic bulb thermometer works. It relies on the principle that liquids expand when heated and contract when cooled. A bulb thermometer contains liquid, usually mercury, in a bulb with a narrow tube. When the bulb is heated, the liquid expands and rises up the tube, allowing the user to read the temperature. The document then provides instructions for making a simple water-based bulb thermometer at home using common household items. However, it notes that a sealed glass thermometer with mercury works better, as it can measure a wider temperature range and respond faster to temperature changes. Finally, it briefly explains how thermometers are calibrated using the freezing and boiling points of water under the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    72 views3 pages

    Bulb Thermometers

    Uploaded by

    dinandx
    This document discusses how a basic bulb thermometer works. It relies on the principle that liquids expand when heated and contract when cooled. A bulb thermometer contains liquid, usually mercury, in a bulb with a narrow tube. When the bulb is heated, the liquid expands and rises up the tube, allowing the user to read the temperature. The document then provides instructions for making a simple water-based bulb thermometer at home using common household items. However, it notes that a sealed glass thermometer with mercury works better, as it can measure a wider temperature range and respond faster to temperature changes. Finally, it briefly explains how thermometers are calibrated using the freezing and boiling points of water under the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    c 

    
     
    The  
     
     is the common glass thermometer you probably grew up
    with. The thermometer contains some type of fluid, generally mercury.

    Bulb thermometers rely on the simple principle that     


      
    
    
    
    
    
    . Liquids take up less space when they are cold and
    more space when they are warm (this same principal works for gases and is the
    basis of the hot air balloon -- for more information, see How Hot Air Balloons
    Work).

    You probably work with liquids every day, but may not notice that things like
    water, milk and cooking oil all take up more or less space as their temperatures
    change. In these cases, the change in volume is fairly small. All bulb
    thermometers use a fairly    and a   
     to accentuate the change
    in volume. You can see this for yourself by making your own bulb thermometer
    from scratch. Here is what you'll need:

    u ë   

    
     
    
    
      - The lid should be the screw-
    on kind and made from metal or plastic. I used a 48-ounce apple juice jar.
    The jar needs to be glass so that its shape does not change when you
    squeeze it.
    u ë        
    u   

      

        


    u ë  
      - 8 or 10 inches (about 23 cm) long, the thinner the better,
    preferably clear
    u       (not required)

    To make your thermometer:

    1. Π     


         The hole should be as close to the
    diameter of the straw as you can get.
    2. = 
    
     
    
      
    
      
        
      with your
    silly putty both on the inside and the outside of the lid. When you get done, it should
    look something like this:
    3. £   
     
    . You can do this either by filling it with water and
    leaving it in the refrigerator overnight, or by making some ice water in a pitcher and
    then pouring the ice water into your jar (straining the ice out in the process -- all you
    want is water in the jar). Add food coloring if you desire and shake it up.

    Put the jar on the table to keep it steady -- you want the jar filled to the brim with cold
    water, as full as you can get it without overflowing.

    4. º
    
      
      as shown in the figure above. When you screw on the cap, a
    little water may spill out the sides, and a little water may be visible in the straw. That's
    okay.
    5. º 
       
      
       
    
     into the sink
    until the sink is about half full.

    Watch the level of the liquid in the straw and a very unusual thing will happen: You
    will SEE the water in the jar expanding right before your eyes! As the water in the jar
    gets warmer, it will expand and rise up the straw. This sort of    happens
    every day, but we don't really notice it because the amount of expansion is fairly
    small. Here, because we have routed the expanding water into a narrow straw, it is
    much more obvious. We can actually see it happening.

    What you have created is a simple bulb thermometer. And it works pretty well. If you wanted
    to you could   
     it, and it would tell you the temperature fairly accurately. This
    particular thermometer has a few problems, however:

    u Because the working fluid is water, it cannot measure temperatures below 32 degrees
    F / 0 degrees C (the water would freeze). It also cannot measure temperatures above
    212 degrees F / 100 degrees C (the water would boil).
    u Because the "bulb" (the jar) is so large, it takes a long time for the thermometer to
    reach the same temperatures as the object it is measuring -- perhaps an hour.
    u Because the top of the tube is open, the water can evaporate and pick up dust and
    debris.

    Sealing   in a small glass thermometer solves these problems. The small size of the
    bulb means that the bulb reaches the temperature of what it is measuring very quickly, and
    the tube in such a thermometer is micro-fine. Mercury also avoids the freezing and boiling
    problems associated with water.

    How do you   
     the thermometer? Two common scales are used:

    u £ 
       - Daniel Fahrenheit arbitrarily decided that the freezing and boiling
    points of water would be separated by 180 degrees, and he pegged freezing water at
    32 degrees. So he made a thermometer, stuck it in freezing water and marked the level
    of the mercury on the glass as 32 degrees. Then he stuck the same thermometer in
    boiling water and marked the level of the mercury as 212 degrees. He then put 180
    evenly spaced marks between those two points.
    u D    - Anders Celsius arbitrarily decided that the freezing and boiling points
    of water would be separated by 100 degrees, and he pegged the freezing point of
    water at 100 degrees. (His scale was later inverted, so the boiling point of water
    became 100 degrees and the freezing point became 0 degrees.)

    As you can see, the temperature scales we commonly use are completely arbitrary! You could
    come up with your own scale if you wanted to. The freezing and boiling points of water are
    nice because they are easily reproduced, but there is nothing to say that you couldn't use
    another scale.

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