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The Galileo Thermometer Was Not Invented By Galileo

Posted by Soulskill on from the turns-out-apple-had-a-patent-all-along dept.

New submitter GregLaden writes "The object known as the Galileo Thermometer is a vertical glass tube filled with a liquid in which are suspended a number of weighted glass balls. As the temperature of the liquid changes, so does the density. Since each glass ball is set to float at equilibrium in a sightly different density of the liquid, as the temperature increases, each glass ball sinks to the bottom. It turns out that this thermometer was actually invented by a team of instrument inventors that formed a scientific society who had the impressive motto 'Probando e Reprobando,' which in English means 'testing and retesting.' The Accademia del Cimento operated under the leadership of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II from 1657-1667 in Florence, Italy. According to Peter Loyson, who has written a corrective article for the Journal of Chemical Education, Galileo did invent a temperature measuring device called a thermoscope."

6 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Evangelista Torricelli by oakgrove · · Score: 4, Informative

    My understanding was that Torricelli who was a pupil of Galileo actually built the "Galileo Thermometer". It would seem to be appropriately named as even today when a grad student makes a discovery or somebody dreams up some patentable something, the credit usually goes to the professor or company the person is working under.

    Or maybe I'm wrong.

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    The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    1. Re:Evangelista Torricelli by oakgrove · · Score: 4, Informative

      To further expand on this, Viviani who was a pupil of Torricelli and also one of the first members of The Accademia del Cimento is credited with having improved the Galileo Thermometer but he didn't actually invent it. I thought all of this was widely known though.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
  2. Let's just say Galileo by Dishwasha · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't these scientists understand that there's no way we can remember all of these historical inventors? If we can just say the majority of things in the world were invented by Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Benjamin Franklin, and Nikola Tesla it would make all our lives so much easier. k thx bye

    1. Re:Let's just say Galileo by cyberchondriac · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't forget Edison, whose 1,000+ patents were largely made by various employees and contributors, but he garnered the historical credit.

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  3. Anyone but Galileo by mcmonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    I couldn't have told who invented the Galileo Thermometer, but I could have told you it wasn't Galileo.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy

  4. Let's just say Tesla by alexander_686 · · Score: 3, Funny

    But, as we all know, Edison and his employees did not invent anything – they stole everything from Tesla – which has already been mentioned. For proof see:

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ea08/?srp=1

    And don’t forget the ancient Egyptians & Chinese. Sure, they got most of the tech from Atlantis, but still.