Question

Would an alcohol thermometer be suitable for determining boiling water? Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Hint: Thermometers are used to measure temperature. We know that different thermometers are used for different purposes and not all thermometers can measure each quantity because of their limits. Also, the boiling temperature of water is different from the alcohol thermometer limits.

Complete step-by-step answer:
The alcohol thermometer is also known as spirit thermometer. It is an alternative to the mercury-in-glass thermometer and has the same functions.
The contents of alcohol are less toxic and will evaporate quickly as compared to the mercury-in-glass thermometer.
Since, alcohol starts boiling at 80℃ while the boiling point of mercury is 375℃. Therefore, a mercury thermometer is used to measure high temperatures.
The temperature of boiling water is 100℃ but the maximum limit that an alcohol thermometer can measure is 80℃.
So, an alcohol thermometer cannot measure the temperature of boiling water as it has the limit to measures up to 80℃.
Therefore, No alcohol thermometer cannot be used to measure the temperature of boiling water.

Additional Information: Thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient. A thermometer has two important elements that are:
A temperature sensor- bulb of mercury-in-glass thermometer acts as a temperature sensor; in this some changes occur with a change in temperature.
Some means of converting this change into a numerical this change into a numerical value.
A clinical thermometer is a small medical thermometer with a short but finely calibrated range. These are used by doctors in clinics. A clinical mercury thermometer has mercury in them which expands with the temperature.

Note: There are different types of thermometer present for different purposes, like- clinical thermometer, laboratory thermometer etc. Thermometers have different limits. The S.I unit of temperature is Kelvin (K).