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

The Edge Company

The Edge Company Catalog features scads of interesting gadgets and tools, such as the world's smallest remote control, a sheet of $2 bills and Galileo's Thermometer. As its name implies, The Edge catalog showcases cutting-edge products.

The Edge has a different, more "high-tech" style than the rest of the catalogs featured here, and its description is telling of this fact: It not only promotes the thermometer as a thing of beauty, but is a bit sarcastic about Galileo's troubles with the church (the inquisition). The catalog recounts how only the intervention of a rich benefactor saved Galileo from a "church barbeque."