Fahrenheit reference points became popular following the work of Anders Celsius and these fixed points were adopted by a committee of the Royal Society led by Henry Cavendish in 1776. Under this system, the Fahrenheit scale is redefined slightly so that the freezing point of water is exactly 32 °F, and the boiling point is exactly 212 °F or 180 degrees higher. It is for this reason that normal human body temperature is approximately 98° (oral temperature) on the revised scale (whereas it was 90° on Fahrenheit's multiplication of Rømer, and 96° on his original scale). The Rankine temperature scale was
Celsius called "centigrade", from the Latin "centum", which means 100, and "gradus", which means steps. From 1743 to 1954, the Celsius scale was based on 0 °C for the freezing point of water and 100 °C for the boiling point of water at 1 atm pressure. Prior to 1743, the scale was also based on the boiling and melting points of water, but the values were reversed (i.e. the boiling point was at 0 degrees and the melting point was at 100 degrees). The 1743 scale reversal was proposed by Jean-Pierre Christin. By international agreement, since 1954 the unit and the