Astronomer and physicist — Anders Celsius (Uppsala 1701 – Uppsala 1744) was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician, professor at Uppsala University. He took part in an expedition to Lapland to measure the length of a degree of meridian, helping to confirm Newton’s theory of the Earth’s flattening at the poles. In 1742 he proposed a centigrade thermometric scale based on two fixed points, the melting of ice and the boiling of water. This scale, later inverted, is now the most widely used in the world for measuring temperature in everyday life. He died young, at only 42, of tuberculosis.
Trivia
In Celsius’s original scale, 0 corresponded to the boiling of water and 100 to the melting of ice: it was inverted only after his death, probably by Linnaeus.
Theories and contributions
- Celsius scale — Thermometric scale with 0 °C at the melting of ice and 100 °C at the boiling of water at atmospheric pressure; conversion .
Present in chapters
Linked atoms
2 linked atoms.