A barometer is an instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure. Two kinds of barometers are in common use, a mercury barometer and an aneroid barometer. The first makes use of a long narrow glass tube filled with mercury supported in a container of mercury, and the second makes use of an elastic disk whose size changes as a result of air pressure.
The principle of the mercury barometer was discovered by the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli in about 1643. That principle can be illustrated as follows: a long glass tube is sealed at one end and then filled with liquid mercury metal. The filled tube is then turned upside down and inserted into a bowl of mercury, called a cistern. When this happens, a small amount of mercury runs out of the tube into the cistern, leaving a vacuum at the top of the tube. Vacuums, by nature, exert very little or no pressure on their surrounding environment.
As atmospheric pressure pushes down on the surface of the mercury in the cistern, that mercury in turn pushes up with an equal pressure on the mercury in the glass tube. The height of the mercury in the tube, therefore, reflects the total pressure exerted by the surrounding atmosphere. Under normal circumstances, the column of mercury in the glass tube stands at a height of about 30 inches (76 centimeters) when measured at sea level.
In theory, a barometer could be made of any liquid whatsoever. Mercury is chosen, however, for a number of reasons. It is so dense that the column supported by air pressure is of a usable height. A similar barometer made of water, in comparison, would have to be more than 34 feet (100 meters) high. Mercury also has a low vapor pressure, meaning it does not evaporate very easily. Water has a greater vapor pressure. Because of this, the pressure exerted by water vapor at the top of the barometer would affect the level of the mercury in the tube and the barometric reading, a factor of almost no consequence with a mercury barometer.
A major disadvantage of the mercury barometer is its bulkiness and fragility. The long glass tube can break easily, and mercury levels may be difficult to read under unsteady conditions, as on board a ship at sea. To resolve these difficulties, the French physicist Lucien Vidie invented the aneroid ("without liquid") barometer in 1843.
An aneroid barometer is a container that holds a sealed chamber from which some air has been removed, creating a partial vacuum. An elastic disk covering the chamber is connected to a needle or pointer on the surface of the container by a chain, lever, and springs. As atmospheric pressure increases or decreases, the elastic disk contracts or expands, causing the pointer to move accordingly.
One type of aneroid barometer has a pointer that moves from left to right in a semicircular motion over a dial, reflecting low or high pressure. The simple clocklike aneroid barometer hanging on the wall of many homes operates on this basis. Another type of aneroid barometer has the pointer resting on the side of a rotating cylinder wrapped with graph paper. As the cylinder rotates on its own axis, the pointer makes a tracing on the paper that reflects increases and decreases in pressure. A recording barometer of this design is known as a barograph.
Words to Know
Altimeter: An aneroid barometer used to measure altitude.
Barograph: An aneroid barometer modified to give a continuous reading of atmospheric pressures on graph paper.
Vapor pressure: The amount of pressure exerted by liquid molecules in the vapor state.
The altimeter. An important application of the aneroid barometer is the altimeter, an instrument used to measure one's distance above sea level. Atmospheric pressure is a function of altitude. The higher one is above sea level, the less the atmospheric pressure; the closer one is to sea level, the greater the atmospheric pressure. A simple aneroid barometer can be used to confirm these differences. If the barometer were mounted in an airplane, a balloon, or some other device that travels up and down in the atmosphere, one could determine the altitude by noting changes in atmospheric pressure.
[ See also Atmospheric pressure ]