Thermometer 1665 Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) suggested using the melting and boiling points of water as standards, and in 1694 Carlo Renaldini (1615–1698) proposed using them as fixed points on a universal scale. In 1701, Isaac Newton (1642–1726/27) proposed a scale of 12 degrees between the melting point of ice and body temperature. In 1714 Dutch scientist and inventor Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first reliable thermometer, using mercury instead of alcohol and water mixtures. In 1724 he proposed a temperature scale which now (slightly adjusted) bears his name. He could do this because he manufactured thermometers, using mercury (which has a
Six's thermometer lower (for minimum) than already recorded, in which case the relevant marker is pushed further. The markers thus record the furthest point reached by the mercury in each arm of the tube, and thereby the highest and lowest temperatures since the last reset. Typically the thermometer is reset every 24 hours to measure the diurnal temperature variation, the positions of the ends of the markers nearest to the mercury are examined. Their positions on the maximum and minimum scales show the highest and lowest temperatures encountered since the last reset. In a variation of design, some models have unsprung markers