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The bulb at the bottom of a thermometer is a reservoir of the temperature sensitive material, traditionally Mercury. If you just had one narrow column of mercury, it would not change its height very much in response to changes of temperature, and therefore it would be very hard to read the temperature accurately off such a thermometer, but when you have a reservoir of mercury which gives you much more mercury and hence much more change in the total volume of the mercury in response to a change in temperature, then the mercury rises and falls to a much greater degree, and is easier to read.

The reservoir shape can be whatever the manufacturer wants it to be, though spherical is not really an optimal choice because a sphere is the minimum surface area to volume shape, which is the exact opposite of what you want if the goal is for the mercury to equilibrate its temperature rapidly with the environment.

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Q: Why thermometer have a bulb like structure at the end but not spherical?
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Describe the structure of a thermometer?

The thermometer consists of a very fine glass tube having a very small bore and is called capillary tube. At one end of capillary tube a very thin glass bulb is provided. The bulb is filled with mercury( most of the times) or alcohol The other end of capillary tube is sealed. The capillary tube is protected by a thick glass tube called stem. On the stem are made markings. These markings are called graduations or degrees.


What did the first thermometer look like?

it looked like a modern thermometer


How do you tell how hot or cold something is?

use a thermometer.We can feel how hot or cold something is. However, sometimes things are just too hot or cold for us to feel safely. At other times we need to know exactly how hot or cold something is. When we need to measure temperature correctly we need to use an instrument called a thermometer. This measures temperature in degrees Celsius [sometimes called centigrade] or degrees Fahrenheit. There are different types of thermometers for different situations. A medical thermometer, for example, needs to be very accurate. It measures in fractions of degrees. When we are ill, even tiny changes in temperature are important. Some thermometers use a liquid that moves up a very fine glass tube. Most room thermometers, and outdoor thermometers are like this. The liquid is either mercury [ which is poisonous] or coloured alcohol. As liquids get warmer they expand [get bigger], and move up the tube. Water expands too, but not as much as alcohol and mercury. Thermometers that might be used by small children are not made of glass. They use a digital display which lights up the temperature. Inside the displays are chemicals that change colour according to the temperature.


What is the resistor inside a light bulb?

In an 'old fashioned' incandescent light bulb, the only electrical part inside is the filament wire itself. When you put a meter across a cold bulb and measure the resistance, you're measuring the resistance of the filament. More modern and more efficient artificial light sources, like fluorescent tubes, LED lights and CFLs, have additional electronic components inside the structure of the bulb.


What is a resistor inside a light bulb?

In an 'old fashioned' incandescent light bulb, the only electrical part inside is the filament wire itself. When you put a meter across a cold bulb and measure the resistance, you're measuring the resistance of the filament. More modern and more efficient artificial light sources, like fluorescent tubes, LED lights and CFLs, have additional electronic components inside the structure of the bulb.

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it looked like a modern thermometer


What did first thermometer look like?

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