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
Thomas Henderson (astronomer) Thomas Henderson (astronomer) Thomas Henderson FRSE FRS FRAS (28 December 1798 – 23 November 1844) was a Scottish astronomer and mathematician noted for being the first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri, the major component of the nearest stellar system to Earth, the first to determine the parallax of a fixed star, and for being the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland. Born in Dundee, he was educated at the High School of Dundee, after which he trained as a lawyer, working his way up through the profession as an assistant to a variety of nobles. However, his major