Thermometer high coefficient of expansion) for the first time and the quality of his production could provide a finer scale and greater reproducibility, leading to its general adoption. In 1742, Anders Celsius (1701–1744) proposed a scale with zero at the boiling point and 100 degrees at the freezing point of water, though the scale which now bears his name has them the other way around. French entomologist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur invented an alcohol thermometer and temperature scale in 1730 that ultimately proved to be less reliable than Fahrenheit's mercury thermometer. The first physician that put thermometer measurements to clinical
Mercury-in-glass thermometer Nowadays, the triple point of water is used instead of the freezing point (the triple point occurs at 273.16 kelvins (K), 0.01 °C). Before the discovery of the true thermodynamic temperature, the thermometer "defined" the temperature; thermometers made with different materials would define different temperature scales (a coloured alcohol thermometer would give a slightly different reading than a mercury thermometer at, say half-scale). In practice, several materials gave very similar temperatures to each other and, when discovered, to the thermodynamic temperature. One special kind of mercury-in-glass thermometer, called a maximum thermometer, works by having a constriction in the neck close