Development of the Celsius Scale
- When
- 1741–1742
- Where
- Uppsala Astronomical Observatory; Uppsala
- Episodes
- 2
Anders Celsius proposed an inverted centigrade temperature scale in 1742 while serving as professor of astronomy at Uppsala University. The scale defined 0 degrees as the boiling point of water and 100 degrees as the freezing point. It was later inverted by Jean-Pierre Christin and Carl Linnaeus to the modern standard.
Episodes
- Founding of Uppsala Astronomical Observatory
Celsius founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1741, creating the institutional base for his work.
- Proposal of Inverted Centigrade Scale
Celsius proposed an inverted temperature scale in 1742 where 0 was boiling and 100 was freezing.
Background and detail
Proposal of the Scale. In 1742, Celsius proposed the centigrade temperature scale in a paper to the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala. This initial version was inverted relative to the modern scale, assigning 0 degrees to the boiling point of water and 100 degrees to the freezing point of water.
People involved
- Anders Celsius · Swedish astronomer and physicist who proposed the original inverted centigrade scale
- Jean-Pierre Christin · French physicist who inverted the scale in 1743
- Carl Linnaeus · Swedish botanist who reversed the scale in 1744
Sources
- Anders Celsius Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-14
- Celsius Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-04
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.