Temperature and thermometer

Temperature
• A basic physical quantity
• Measure the degree of hotness of a body
• Measure by an instrument called
thermometer
 Common Temperature Scale
• 2 common types
– Celsius scale (oC)
– Fahrenheit scale (oF)

• Relationship
F = 1.8 C + 32
• Example
If C =30 oC then F =84 oF
 Temperature Scale
• 2 fixed points at temperatures (0oC and 100o
C) are chosen
– ice point (0 oC)
– steam point (100 oC)
• divide the range between ice point and stea
m point by 100 equal divisions
 Question
length of mercury column at 0oC is 12 cm
length of mercury column at 100oC is 22 cm

What is the temperature if the length of the

column is 16 cm?
 Answer
1 cm of mercury column represents
100 / (22 - 12 )
= 10 oC

length of the mercury column is (16 - 12) cm

= 4 cm
temperature at length 16 cm is 4 x 10 = 40 oC
 Graphical Method
100
o
C 40
0

12 16 22 cm

From the graph, the value is 40oC

 Question
length of mercury column at 37oC is 12.0 cm
length of mercury column at 100oC is 26.1 cm

What is the length of the mercury column at t

emperature 0 oC?
 Different type of thermometers
• liquid-in-glass thermometer
– mercury-in-glass
– alcohol-in-glass
– Why not use water ???
• Other materials which can vary with temperature
– resistance, current, length, color, infra-red
 Liquid-in-glass thermometer
• Liquid-in-glass thermometer
– Capillary tube ensure that a small change in vol
ume causes a large change in length
– Alcohol
• range –115oC to 78oC
– Mercury
• range –39oC to 357oC
 Mercury-in-glass thermometer
• Advantages
– Expands evenly on heating
– Responds quickly to temperature
– A high boiling point, so used in hot places
– It does not wet
• Disadvantages
– Poisonous
– Expensive
– A high freezing point, so not used in cold places
 Alcohol-in-glass thermometer
• Advantages
– Expands about six times of mercury
– Expand evenly on heating
– A low freezing point, so used in very cold places
– It is safe
– It is cheap
• Disadvantages
– It is dyed
– It wet the tube
– It does not respond quickly with temperature
– A low boiling point, so not used in hot places
 Clinical thermometer
• Clinical thermometer
– A specialized mercury-in-glass thermometer to
take body temperature
– A constriction to prevent mercury from falling
• range a few degrees above and below 37oC
 Other types of thermometer
• Rotary thermometer
• Resistance thermometer
• Liquid Crystal thermometer
• Thermistor thermometer
• Thermocouple thermometer
• Infra-red thermometer
Rotary thermometer
thermometric property : expansion rate
Resistance thermometer
thermometric property : resistance
Liquid Crystal thermometer

thermometric property : colour

 Thermistor thermometer
thermometric property : resistance
Thermocouple thermometer
thermometric property : current
Infra-red thermometer

thermometric property : infra-red

 To define a temperature scale
• To define a temperature scale
– thermometers must have thermometric properties
(e.g. length, current) which varies with
temperature
– the values of the property such as length are
measured at 2 fixed temperatures which are easily
reproduced
– the interval between the 2 fixed temperatures is
divided into a number of subintervals