Medical thermometer Bahamas, Belize, and the Cayman Islands. Prominent Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physicist Christiaan Huygens created a clinical thermometer in 1665, to which he added an early form of the centigrade scale by setting the scale to the freezing and boiling points of water. By 1742 Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius created the Celsius temperature scale that was the reverse of the modern scale, in that "0" was the boiling point of water, while "100" was freezing. It would later be reversed by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) in 1744. Working independently of Celsius, the Lyonnais physicist Jean-Pierre Christin, permanent secretary of
David Kennedy (astronomer) David Kennedy (astronomer) David Kennedy (27 April 1864 – 10 March 1936) was born at Lyttelton, New Zealand, the son of an Irish mother and a Scottish father who came to New Zealand from Melbourne in 1863. He became the first New Zealand born priest of the Society of Mary (Marists), a noted astronomer and educator. As a boy he showed a keen interest in both theology and science. Because of his undoubted intelligence and promise he was sent to study at the Marist college at Dundalk, Ireland in 1878. In 1884 he entered the Marist novitiate at Paignton, England,