On this night in science
Anders Celsius is born
November 27, 1701
On this day in 1701, Anders Celsius was born in Uppsala, Sweden. He grew up to be an astronomer, and he made a temperature scale using two things anyone could check: when water freezes and when it boils.
Why it mattered
His scale put a hundred steps between freezing and boiling, and most of the world still uses it. At first he had it upside down, with boiling at zero, and it was flipped the other way a few years later.
Wonder together
If a hundred meant freezing and zero meant boiling, what number do you think a warm bath would be?