Mercury is better than any substitute I saw. So it is a logical approach. Haven't used electronic ones but they say that precision varies from unusable for medical purposes to ok and you will never guess which is which. Mercury thermometers are primitive and precise.
All thermometers are only as good as their calibration. There is nothing intrinsically better about mercury over alcohol, or electronic.
Please share your source that electric is unusable, when all first world hospitals use electronic exclusively. I have half a dozen aliexpress thermometers for home automation, they all track the temperature identically, they just need to be calibrated first, and once.
While your at it, what is wrong with alcohol based thermometers? They are built the same way, how could they be worse?
Just try and compare mercury and alcohol. Non-mercury are pain in the ass to reset. It looks like that mix is more "stickly"(I don't know the correct term in English) to the glass.
No one is using alcohol or mercury except in outdoor thermometers. Electronic thermometers are a solved problem.
You are arguing the equivalent of the merits of lead additives in gasoline in a world that is looking for fuel alternatives.
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