Question

You can use a mercury thermometer to accurately infer whether mercury expands linearly with temperature

• A. True
• B. False

Answer 1

The correct option is B False

No! You cannot use the thermometer to verify the linear expansion of mercury. This is because the temperature scale itself is defined by making equal markings between 0⁰ C and 100⁰ C, assuming that mercury expands linearly.

In fact, scientists have now established using statistical physics and other concepts that mercury does not expand exactly in a linear fashion.

Before all this, the only way to guess if a thermometer fluid is a good choice (i.e, expands linearly) was to observe which of them gave consistent results.