The Introduction of Self-Registering Meteorological Instruments

The Introduction of Self-Registering Meteorological Instruments

Robert P. Multhauf The flowering of science in the 17th century was accompanied by an efflorescence of instrument invention as luxurious as that of science itself. Although there were foreshadowing events, this flowering seems to have owed much to Galileo, whose interest in the measurement of natural phenomena is well known, and who is himself credited with the invention of the thermometer and the hydrostatic balance, both of which he devised in connection with experimentation on specific scientific problems. Many, if not most, of the other Italian instrument inventors of the early 17th century were his disciples. Benedetto Castelli, being interested in the effect of rainfall on the level of a lake, constructed a rain gauge about 1628. Santorio, well known as a pioneer in the quantification of animal physiology, is credited with observations, about 1626, that led to the development of the hygrometer. Both of these contemporaries were interested in Galileo's most famous invention, the thermoscopeforerunner of the thermometerwhich he [Pg 97]developed about 1597 as a method of obtaining comparisons of temperature. The utility of the instrument was immediately recognized by physicists (not by chemists, oddly enough), and much ingenuity was expended on its perfection over a 50-year period, in northern Europe as well as in Italy. The conversion of this open, air-expansion thermoscope into the modern thermometer was accomplished by the Florentine Accademia del Cimento about 1660. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 32482
Author: Multhauf, Robert P.
Release Date: May 22, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English