Signedscale marked on back: $ [and] of Beckmann
Inscribedlabel on case: "Broken by KPH Roupler July 1915" used by Lyman Hall or Bridgman, from Lyman Lab Oct. 13, 1963.
FunctionThis is a thermometer that the user can fill with different amounts of mercury to use at different temperature ranges. It is extremely precise but because of this it has a narrow range of 6.8 degrees Celsius. To set it up for use, the thermometer would be placed in contact with a substance a few degrees above the upper required limit of temperature, and enough mercury would then be poured in so that the stem filled up to the s-bend. That way, the thermometer would have a range up to that temperature.
This particular one was used in physics experiments at Harvard.
Primary SourcesAbbot, C.G. The Experiments of Dr. P. W. Bridgman on the Properties of Matter When Under High Pressure in Smithsonian Report for 1918. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920. pp. 185 - 204. (Lib. 2912)
Bridgman, Percy W. Mercury resistance as a pressure gauge. Physics Research Thesis at Harvard University (in Harvard University Archives), 1910.
-------------------------- A condensed collection of thermodynamic formulas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925.
-------------------------- Physics of High Pressures. London: Bell, 1931.
-------------------------- "Shearing phenomena at high pressure of possible importance for geology" in Journal of Geology, Vol. 44 No. 6 (1936), pp. 653 - 669.
------------------------- Studies in Large Plastic Flow and Fracture. New York: McGraw Hill, 1952.
-------------------------- "Certain Aspects of Plastic Flow under High Stresses" in Studies in Mathematics and Mechanics Presented to Richard von Mises. New York: Academic Press Inc., 1954. pp. 227 - 231. (Lib. 5817)
-------------------------- "Effects of Pressure on Binary Alloys" and "Miscellaneous Effects of Pressure on Miscellaneous Substances" in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 84, No. 1 (1955).
-------------------------- "Synthetic Diamonds" in Scientific American, November 1955, pp. 42 - 46. (Lib. 340)
------------------------- Collected Experimental Papers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964.
ProvenanceFrom the Department of Physics, Lyman Laboratory, Harvard University.
Related WorksKenble, Edwin C. & Francis Birch. Percy Williams Bridgman, 1882 - 1961. A biographical memoir. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Walter, Maila L. Science and cultural crisis: an intellectual biography of Percy Williams Bridgman (1882 - 1961). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990 [1985].