Anders Celsius

Who is Anders Celsius?

Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician best known for creating the temperature scale that bears his name. Born in Uppsala into a family of scientists, he became professor of astronomy at Uppsala University in 1730. He travelled widely across Europe visiting notable observatories and took part in the French Geodesic Mission to Lapland, led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, which measured a meridian arc near Tornio to help confirm that the Earth is flattened at the poles. On his return he was instrumental in founding the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory, which opened in 1741. In 1742 he presented a paper to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences proposing a centigrade thermometer scale; in his original version 0 marked the boiling point of water and 100 the freezing point, an ordering that was later reversed to the form used today. He died of tuberculosis in Uppsala in 1744.

Sources: Anders Celsius, Observationer om twänne beständiga grader på en thermometer (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1742) · Anders Celsius, De observationibus pro figura telluris determinanda (1738)