Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (Gdansk, May 24, 1686 – The Hague, Netherlands, September 16, 1736) was a German-born Polish physicist, engineer and glassblower, famous for among other things for having developed the mercury thermometer and the Fahrenheit temperature scale. He spent much of his life in the Netherlands

Biography

After the death of his parents, he made study trips to Germany, England and Denmark where in 1708 he met Ole Rømer. He then settled in Amsterdam (Netherlands), at that time one of the main manufacturing centers for scientific instruments, where he worked as a glass blower. There he began to develop precision instruments creating the water (1709) and mercury (1714) thermometers.

Thermometric scales

The steps show celsius (left) and Fahrenheit (right).

In 1717 he published in Acta Editorum his research proposing a new scale for measuring temperatures. Fahrenheit designed a scale, using as a reference a mixture of water and ammonium chloride salt in equal parts, in which the freezing and boiling temperatures are lower than that of water. The freezing value of that mixture he called 0°F, his body temperature 96°F, and the freezing temperature of water without salts he called 32°F.

Specifically, 212 degrees Fahrenheit correspond to 100 degrees Celsius;

C=(F− − 32)59{displaystyle {text{C}}=({text{F}}}-32){frac {5}{9}}}}}}}{

0 °F corresponds to -17.78 °C.

The reason for assigning the value 96 to body temperature was so that between zero and 96 there would be a scale made up of a dozen divisions, each subdivided into eight parts. Thus 12 x 8 = 96.

In 1724, Fahrenheit published in the Philosophical Transactions, studies about, among other topics, the boiling temperatures of liquids and the solidification of water in a vacuum. That same year he was inducted into the Royal Society, the oldest scientific society in the United Kingdom and one of the oldest in Europe.

Acknowledgment

• Lunar crater Fahrenheit bears this name in his honor.