Instruments

Calorimeter

Citation Formats

General Reference

Science Atlas. "Calorimeter." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/calorimeter.

APA Style

Science Atlas. (n.d.). Calorimeter. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/calorimeter

BibTeX

@misc{scienceatlas-calorimeter,
  author = {Science Atlas},
  title = {Calorimeter},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/calorimeter},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

A calorimeter is a device used for calorimetry, measuring the heat released or absorbed during a chemical reaction or physical change.

Facts

Invented Year

1782 1

The term calorimeter was coined by Antoine Lavoisier in 1780; the first ice calorimeter was built by Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace over the winter of 1782-83, building on Joseph Black's 1761 discovery of latent heat.

Measures

Heat released or absorbed (enthalpy of reaction) and heat capacity. 1

Operating Principle

Measures the temperature change produced in a known mass and specific heat capacity of surrounding material (or, in the original ice calorimeter, the mass of ice melted) to calculate the energy given off or absorbed. 1

Resolution

Semi-adiabatic (isoperibol) calorimeters can measure temperature changes as small as 10 to the minus 6 degrees Celsius. 1

Open Questions

Operating Range

Not stated as a numeric figure in the cited source. 1

No explicit numeric operating temperature or heat-quantity range is given by the cited source for calorimeters in general; ranges vary widely by subtype (bomb, ice, differential scanning) and are not consolidated into one figure there.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Invented By

Antoine Lavoisier

With Pierre-Simon Laplace, whose own entity is not yet live on this atlas; one of the first ice calorimeters was used by the pair in the winter of 1782-83.

Source Calorimeter (Wikipedia)