Medical thermometer and displaying temperature became available, electronic thermometers (often called "digital", because they display numeric values) have been used. Many display readings to great precision (0.1 °C or 0.2 °F, sometimes half that), but this should not be taken as a guarantee of accuracy: specified accuracy must be checked in documentation and maintained by periodical recalibration. A typical inexpensive electronic ear thermometer for home use has a displayed resolution of 0.1 °C, but a stated accuracy within ±0.2 °C (±0.35 °F) when new. The first electronic clinical thermometer, invented in 1954, used a flexible probe that contained a Carboloy thermistor. Types
Galileo thermometer a thermometer, called Galileo's air thermometer (more accurately termed a thermoscope), in or before 1603. The so-called 'Galileo thermometer' was invented by a group of academics and technicians known as the Accademia del Cimento of Florence, who included Galileo's pupil, Torricelli and Torricelli's pupil Viviani. Details of the thermometer were published in the "Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'Academia del Cimento sotto la protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal segretario di essa Accademia" (1666), the Academy's main publication. The English translation of this work (1684) describes the device ('The Fifth Thermometer') as 'slow and lazy', a