Merchandise Spotlight-Galileo's Thermometer (1,026 words)

At the turn of the 17th century, Italian inventor Galileo Galilei discovered that a change in temperature affects the buoyancy of liquid, giving rise to the invention of a crude thermometer. Fast forward about 400 years, and Galileo's "thermoscope" is now available to the masses, sold as a work of art and science to grace our homes and offices. Today's version consists of a clear glass cylinder, filled with a clear, temperature-sensitive liquid and glass globes filled with colored liquids, each with a numbered tag to display the temperature.