Anders Celsius biography

Anders Celsius (November 27, 1701 – April 25, 1744) was born in Uppsala, Sweden. Physicist and astronomer, creator of the centesimal scale of the thermometer known as Grade Celsius (° C), which replaced the scale proposed by the German scientist, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724. Celsius, like many other scientists of his day, had a careful education that covered various fields. However, he focused fully on physics and astronomy, areas in which he excelled being considered one of the most prominent scientists of the 18th century. Throughout his academic career, he served as a professor of astronomy at the University of Uppsala. He was also one of the supervisors of the construction of the Uppsala Observatory, which he directed for several years.

He was born in a family belonging to the academic circle of the country. His father was Nils Celsius, an outstanding astronomer, a descendant of Magnus Celsius, a renowned mathematician and astronomer, who deciphered the runes of Staveless. His uncle Olof Celsius was the creator of a botanical school in Uppsala and a professor famous for his knowledge about mosses. On the maternal side, Celsius is related to Anders Spole, an astronomer and mathematician who served as a professor at Upsala University.

Career

After completing his studies he began to practice as a professor at the University of Uppsala (1730-1744) for 14 years. During this time, he conducted various investigations related to the field of astronomy. In the early years of the 1730s, he undertook a trip through Europe in which he visited the most outstanding astronomical observatories of the time, arriving to work with renowned astronomers. In 1733, he published a compilation of 316 observations of northern lights, in which he speculated about their relationship with magnetism.

Between 1736 and 1737 he was part of the group of researchers that accompanied the French astronomer Pierre Louis Maupertuis, on his journey through the northern region of Sweden where he sought to measure the length of the meridian near the pole, to compare it with the measurement made in Peru near to Ecuador. This research was known as the Lapland Expedition, which sought to demonstrate that Newton’s predictions about the flattening of the earth at the poles were correct, a conclusion they reached after the measurements. The calculations and conclusions of the expedition were included in La Figure de la Terre, a book published by Maupertuis in 1738.

For his participation in the expedition, Celsius was rewarded as an annual pension of 1,000 pounds, economic income that allowed him to invest in the construction of the Uppsala Observatory, which was one of the most modern of his time, after the opening he was appointed director of the observatory (1740). During the following years, he made various geographical measures used in the Swedish map. In the 1740s he carried out the studies in relation to the temperature scale by which he is known.

By 1742, he proposed to the Swedish academy a new way of measuring the temperature based on two established points: 0 indicated the boiling point of water and 100 represented the degree of freezing; which meant that as the heat increased the temperature dropped. This proposal would replace the scale created by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724, known as Fahrenheit Grade (° F), which ranged from 32 to 212 degrees.

Explained the operation of the scale, Celsius, created the centesimal scale that ranged from 0 to 100 degrees and invented the mercury thermometer. After three years, the scale was reversed by the Swedish scientist Karl von Linné, a modification with which it has been used since then. The scale of the Swedish scientist was called in the first years, Swedish thermometer, a term used by the scientific community of the time, however, since the 19th century it began to be called Celsius thermometer, in homage to its creator, it has also been known as Grade Celsius (° C). The following century this was replaced by the Kelvin scale (Kelvin K Grade), created in 1848 by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).

The contributions of Celsius in the field of science are not reduced to scale, he was also the first scientist to raise the relationship between the phenomenon of the auroras and magnetism, also made numerous observations of this phenomenon that allowed his study years late. Another contribution of this scientist in the astronomical field was his studies on eclipses and stars, which included a detailed catalog of 300 stars and their system. Two years after the scale was created, the Swedish scientist contracted tuberculosis, a disease that deteriorated his health in a short time, passing away on April 25th, 1744, at the age of 43.