SFU EHS will swap your mercury thermometers with non-mercury alternatives for free. Simon Fraser University is committed to eliminating non-essential uses of mercury and mercury-containing products.

A thermometer is a simple analog computer. As the temperature varies, the mercury moves correspondingly. A slide rule is another example. Although special-purpose, complex analog computers are ...

Mercury is toxic to the touch and would be dangerous should the thermometer bulb break. Another advantage of alcohol is that the freezing temperature of mercury is around -38F, so a mercury ...