Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit divisible into many fractions. It is because of the scale's redefinition that normal body temperature today is taken as 98.6 degrees, whereas it was 96 degrees on Fahrenheit's original scale. The Fahrenheit scale was the primary temperature standard for climatic, industrial and medical purposes in English-speaking countries until the 1970s, nowadays replaced by the Celsius scale long used in the rest of the world. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit FRS (; ; 24 May 1686 – 16 September 1736) was a Dutch-German-Polish physicist, inventor, and scientific instrument maker. Fahrenheit was born in Danzig/Gdańsk, a predominantly German-speaking Hanseatic city in
Breguet's thermometer Breguet's thermometer Breguet's thermometer, also called a spiral thermometer, is a type of thermometer which uses the expansion of metal under heat to produce a measurement more sensitive, and with a higher range, than both mercury and air thermometers. Working on the principle of a bimetallic strip, it consists of a very slender strip of platinum soldered to a similar strip of silver, with a slip of gold soldered in between. The strips of soldered metals are curved into a helix (a). The upper extremity of the helix is fastened to a metallic support (c) and the lower extremity is