Mercury-in-glass thermometer ushered in a new era of accuracy and precision in thermometry, and is still to this day regarded as one of the most accurate thermometers available. The thermometer was used by the originators of the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. Anders Celsius, a Swedish scientist, devised the Celsius scale, which was described in his publication "The origin of the Celsius temperature scale" in 1742. Celsius used two fixed points in his scale: the temperature of melting ice and the temperature of boiling water. This wasn't a new idea, since Isaac Newton was already working on something similar. The distinction of Celsius
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