- Celsius, Anders
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born Nov. 27, 1701, Uppsala, Swed.died April 25, 1744, UppsalaSwedish astronomer.He taught at the University of Uppsala from 1730 to his death. In 1733 he published a collection of 316 observations of the aurora borealis. In 1744 he built the Uppsala Observatory. He is best known for his invention of the Celsius (often called centigrade) thermometer scale (1742), which set the freezing point of water at 0° and the boiling point of water at 100°.
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▪ Swedish astronomerborn November 27, 1701, Uppsala, Swedendied April 25, 1744, Uppsalaastronomer who invented the Celsius temperature scale (often called the centigrade scale).Celsius was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744, and in 1740 he built the Uppsala Observatory. In 1733 Celsius published a collection of 316 observations of the aurora borealis (aurora), or northern lights, made by himself and others from 1716 to 1732. He advocated the measurement of an arc of a meridian in Lapland and in 1736 took part in an expedition organized for that purpose, which verified Isaac Newton (Newton, Sir Isaac)'s theory that the Earth is somewhat flattened at the poles. In 1742 he described his thermometer in a paper read before the Swedish Academy of Sciences. His other works include Dissertatio de Nova Methodo Distantiam Solis a Terra Determinandi (1730; “A Dissertation on a New Method of Determining the Distance of the Sun from the Earth”) and De Observationibus pro Figura Telluris Determinanda in Gallia Habitis, Disquisitio (1738; “Disquisition on Observations Made in France for Determining the Shape of the Earth”).* * *
Universalium. 2010.
