The Standard Gas Thermometer

A practical thermometer is calibrated by placing it in carefully prepared

environments at each of the two temperatures and marking the position of the mercury or
pointer. For a Celsius scale, the distance between the two marks is then divided into one
hundred equal intervals separated by small marks representing each degree between 0˚C
and 100˚C (hence the name ‘centigrade scale’ meaning a ‘hundred steps’). For a
Fahrenheit scale, the two points are labeled 32˚F and 212˚F and the distance between
them is divided into 180 equal intervals. For temperatures below the freezing point of
water and above the boiling point of water the scales can be extended using the same
equally spaced intervals.
Ordinary thermometers can be used only over a limited temperature range
because of their own limitations – for example, the mercury-in-glass thermometer
solidifies at some point, below which the thermometer will be useless. It is also rendered
useless above temperatures where the fluid vaporizes.
Different materials do not expand in quite the same way over a wide temperature
range. Consequently, if we calibrate different kinds of thermometers exactly as described
above, they will not usually agree precisely. Because of how we calibrate them, they will
agree at 0˚C and at 100˚C. But because of different expansion properties, they may not

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 agree precisely at intermediate temperatures (remember we arbitrarily divided the
thermometer scale into 100 equal divisions between 0˚C and 100˚C). Thus a carefully
calibrated mercury-in-glass thermometer might register 52.0˚C, whereas a carefully
calibrated thermometer of another type might read 52.6˚C
Over time this apparatus has been simplified. Due to the discrepancies arising as
mentioned above, some standard kind of thermometer must be chosen so that these
intermediate temperatures can be precisely defined. The chosen standard was the
constant volume gas thermometer. As shown in the diagram below, this thermometer
consisted of a bulb filled with a dilute gas connected by a thin tube to a mercury
manometer. The volume of gas was kept constant by raising or lowering the right-hand
tube of the manometer so that the mercury in the left tube coincided with the reference
mark. An increase in temperature caused a proportional increase in pressure in the bulb.
Thus the tube must be lifted higher to keep the volume of the gas constant. The height of
the mercury in the right-hand column is then a measure of the temperature. This
thermometer can be calibrated and gives the same results for all gases in the limit of
reducing the gas pressure in the bulb toward zero. The resulting scale is defined as the
standard temperature scale.
The choice of gas is important, as the gas used must be one which approaches the
ideal gas as closely as possible: its chemical effect on the material of the bulb as well as
its diffusivity through the material must be taken into account. For low temperatures,
from the ice point to about -210˚C, helium gas is used; then, hydrogen for temperatures
up to 550˚C, above which this gas will diffuse readily through the platinum wall of the
bulb. Nitrogen comes last for the upper ranges of temperature up to 1650˚C.

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