Home News The first thermometer

The first recorded thermometer was produced by the Italian, Santorio Santorio (1561-1636) who was one of a group of Venetian scientists working at the end of the Sixteenth Century. As with many inventions the thermometer came about through the work of many scientists and was improved upon by many others.
 
1596
 Galileo Galilei and the first thermoscope
Galileo Galilei is often claimed to be the inventor of the thermometer. However the instrument he invented could not strictly be called a thermometer: to be a thermometer an instrument must measure temperature differences; Galileo's instrument did not do this, but merely indicated temperature differences. His instrument should rightly be called a thermoscope.

The Thermoscope
The predecessor to the thermometer, the thermoscope is a thermometer without a scale; it indicates differences in temperature only ie it can show if the temperature is higher, lower or the same, but unlike a thermometer it cannot measure the difference nor can the result be recorded for future reference. The thermoscope was widely used by a group of scientists in Venice that included Galileo. It was only a small step from the thermoscope to the thermometer.