Alcohol thermometer Duke of Tuscany, who in 1654 made sealed tubes partly filled with alcohol or urine, with a bulb and stem, depending on the expansion of a liquid, and independent of air pressure. Other sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica, credit German scientist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit with inventing the alcohol thermometer in 1709. Fahrenheit was a skilled glassblower and his alcohol thermometer was the world's first reliable thermometer. Alcohol thermometer The alcohol thermometer or spirit thermometer is an alternative to the mercury-in-glass thermometer and has similar functions. Unlike the mercury-in-glass thermometer, the contents of an alcohol thermometer are less toxic and will
Six's thermometer in the push-button type with the magnetic plate in place, there is a risk of damaging the weak magnet behind the scale, or magnetising the steel in the markers either weakening or enhancing the pulling force against the capillary tube on all or part of the scale so that the thermometer no longer works properly. The original Six's thermometer design contains mercury, which has been banned for most uses in the European Union and some other parts of the world. In 2006, S.Brannan & Sons Ltd, a UK company, was granted a patent for a mercury-free version of Six's maximum–minimum