Gems from the Museum

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Hot and Cold

Glass thermometers handmade and hand signed by French and German craftsmen were prized and necessary possessions of the physics department in the late 19th century. Every summer, when faculty members traveled to Europe, they purchased the instruments and carried them back to campus in individual brass, wood, or cardboard cases. Today, 50 of those mercury thermometers are among the few existing artifacts from the years MIT resided in Boston, 1865 to 1916. The Beckmann thermometer, a two-foot-long instrument that can be calibrated to measure temperatures within any range of five degrees Celsius, is considered the most accurate mercury thermometer ever made. Science and technology curator Debbie Douglas estimates that most of the thermometers in the collection were probably purchased in the 1880s and 90s.