Author: Mark Allen
Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer who invented a thermometer based on the boiling point and freezing point of water. We know a slightly improved version of his thermometer by the Celsius name and by the word centigrade. The words Celsius and centigrade mean the same thing, but style guides say don’t bother with centigrade anymore, use Celsius. The original Celsius thermometer had water boiling at 0 degrees and freezing at 100 degrees. Others scientists flipped those numbers for more practical measurements of extreme heat. Each degree of temperature later was called centigrade, from the Latin words centum and gradus,…