Why was the hydrometer invented

View manifest View in Mirador. In , in the second issue of the first volume of the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts —a publication that Nicholson established and edited—there was an article by the French chemist, Guyton de Morveau, describing a hydrometer that Nicholson had designed several years earlier. This incomplete example came from Bucknell University. The maker is unknown.

Location Currently not on view Object Name hydrometer Measurements overall: 11 in x 2 in; Nominate this object for photography. See our privacy policy. The hydrometer was probably used for home brewing or by someone at work. A hydrometer was used for measuring specific gravity how heavy a liquid is compared to water in alcoholic drinks and other liquids. Nowadays hydrometers are made out of glass but then, in the 19th century, they were made out of brass.

It would tell the brewer about the alcoholic strength. This old object tells us about technology in the 19th century in Buckhurst Hill. Buckhurst Hill was famous for the beer industry in England.

The Lee Navigation would transport coal to fire the kilns of the maltings in Hertford and Ware which produced the malt for the beer. In , the instrument was described by Galileo in a letter to Nozzolini; in , Raffaello Magiotti forwarded a description to Don Lorenzo de' Medici.

Hydrometer shapes have varied over the centuries. Leonardo da Vinci built the first crude hygrometer in the s.

Francesco Folli invented a more practical hygrometer in A hydrometer is made up of a thin glass or plastic tube sealed at both ends with a graduated or printed scale calibrated to a specific gravity. One end of the tube is bulb shaped and weighted with a ballast of either fine lead shot or steel shot.

In geotechnical engineering, hydrometer analysis is primarily used to know the grain size distribution of a fine grained soil. How Do Hydrometers work? Hydrometers use displacement to calculate the density and specific gravity of a liquid. When the hydrometer is placed in a liquid sample, it displaces some of the liquid. The volume of liquid that is displaced is then used to measure its density. A hydrometer measures the density of a liquid.

A weight sits at the bottom, and a scale at the narrow top end.