New Electronic Thermometer, 1955

[Homer J Simpson]

[SeanB]

Now available for under $5 as well, and it is hard now to actually buy a mercury thermometer as well.

[Stupid Beard]

I like how they say it can be used in the dark, which skips over the fact that to actually use it in the dark you'd still need a light and thus could use any thermometer 

[Brumby]

Now available for under $5 as well, and it is hard now to actually buy a mercury thermometer as well.

I still remember the first time I saw a mercury thermometer.  A nice long one in high school.  The teacher was going to show us the temperature changes from ice to steam, so she put ice in a flask, took a cork and put a hole in it, fitted this onto the flask and then inserted the thermometer into the hole.  After a little entertainment where she lit the gas tap instead of the bunsen burner, we had heat under the flask.

The ice melted, the temperature rose and when it started boiling I didn't notice any steam escaping - that was until the cork and thermometer were launched into the vermiculite ceiling.  (The cork survived.)

An electronic thermometer wouldn't have been half as much fun.