Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit | |
---|---|
thermometry ) | |
Signature | |
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
Biography
Early life
Fahrenheit was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), then in the
As a young adult, Fahrenheit "showed a particular desire for studying," and was scheduled to enroll in the Danzig Gymnasium.[6]: 111 But on 14 August 1701, his parents died after eating poisonous mushrooms.[7] Fahrenheit, along with two brothers and sisters, was placed under guardianship. In 1702, Fahrenheit's guardians enrolled him in a bookkeeping course and sent him to a four-year merchant trade apprenticeship in Amsterdam.[8]: 1
Upon completing his apprenticeship, Fahrenheit ran off[6]: 111 and began a period of travel through Germany, Sweden, and Denmark in 1707. At the request of his guardians, a warrant was issued for his arrest with the intention of placing him into the service of the Dutch East India company.[8]: 3–4
Work with thermometers, Fahrenheit scale
By around 1706, Fahrenheit was manufacturing and shipping barometers and spirit-filled thermometers using the Florentine temperature scale.[6]: 116 In 1708, Fahrenheit met with the mayor of Copenhagen and astronomer, Ole Rømer, and was introduced to Rømer's temperature scale and his methods for making thermometers. Rømer told Fahrenheit that demand for accurate thermometers was high.[8]: 4 The visit inspired Fahrenheit to try to improve his own offerings.[9] Perhaps not coincidentally, Fahrenheit's arrest warrant was dropped around the time of his meeting with Rømer.[8]: 3–4
In 1709, Fahrenheit returned to Danzig and took observations using his barometers and thermometers, traveled more in 1710 and returned to Danzig in 1711 to settle his parent's estate. After additional travel to Königsberg and Mitau in 1711, he returned to Danzig in 1712 and stayed there for two years. During this period he worked on solving technical problems with his thermometers.[8]: 4–5
Fahrenheit began experimenting with mercury thermometers in 1713.
In addition to his interest in meteorological instruments, Fahrenheit also worked on his ideas for a mercury clock, a
In 1717 or 1718, Fahrenheit returned to Amsterdam and began selling barometers,
Later life and controversy
Fahrenheit spent the remainder of his life in Amsterdam. From 1718 onward, he lectured in chemistry in Amsterdam. He visited England in 1724 and was elected into the Fellow of the Royal Society on May 5.[10] In August of that year, he published five papers in Latin for the Royal Society's scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, on various topics. In his second paper, Experimenta et observationes de congelatione aquae in value factae, he provides a description of his thermometers and the reference points he used for calibrating them. For two centuries, this document was the only description of Fahrenheit's process for making thermometers.[9]: 75 In the 20th century, Ernst Cohen uncovered correspondences between Fahrenheit and Herman Boerhaave which cast considerable doubt on the veracity of Fahrenheit's article explaining the reference points for his scale and that, in fact, Fahrenheit's scale was largely derived from Rømer's scale. In his book, The History of the Thermometer and Its Use in Meteorology, W. E. Knowles Middleton writes,
I believe that much of the confusion [over the Fahrenheit scale] has resulted from believing that [Fahrenheit] meant exactly what he said [in his Royal Society article], and discounting the natural tendency of an instrumentmaker to wish to conceal his processes, or at least to obfuscate his readers.[9]: 75
— W. E. Knowles Middleton, "The History of the Thermometer and Its Use in Meteorology"
From August 1736 to his death, Fahrenheit stayed in the house of Johannes Frisleven at
Fahrenheit scale
According to Fahrenheit's 1724 article,
Fahrenheit came up with the idea that mercury boils around 300 degrees on this
The Fahrenheit scale was the primary temperature standard for climatic, industrial and medical purposes in English-speaking countries until the 1970s, presently mostly replaced by the Celsius scale long used in the rest of the world, apart from the United States, where temperatures and weather reports are still broadcast in Fahrenheit.[19]
See also
References
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 126.
- ^ Dorsey, N. Ernest (15 November 1946). "Title of the Article". Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. 36 ([issue number]): 363.
- ^ a b Grigull, Ulrich (1966). Fahrenheit, a Pioneer of Exact Thermometry. (The Proceedings of the 8th International Heat Transfer Conference, San Francisco, 1966, Vol. 1, pp. 9–18.)
- ^ Kant, Horst (1984). G. D. Fahrenheit / R. -A. F. de Réaumur / A. Celsius. B. G. Teubner. Retrieved 14 June 2008.
- ^ See the Fahrenheit and Krueger genealogies.
- ^ a b c Momber, Alfred (1890). "Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit.; sein Leben und Wirken". Schriften der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Danzig. 7 (J).
- ^ Meyer, F.A. (1952). "Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit aus Danzig". Westpreussen Jahrbuch (1951–1952): 138–141.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Star, Pieter van der: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit's Letters to Leibniz and Boerhaave. Rodopi Publishers, Amsterdam 1983.
- ^ a b c d * Middleton, W. E. Knowles (1966). A History of the Thermometer and its Use in Meteorology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press.: 71
- ^ "The Royal Society Archive catalogue". Archived from the original on 27 November 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ "The Kloosterkerk". The Kloosterkerk. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
- ^ Zuiden, D.S. van: Het Testament en de Inboedel van Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, in: "Oud-Holland", pp. 123-130, Binger Publishers, Amsterdam 1913
- ^ a b "Fahrenheit temperature scale". Sizes, Inc. 10 December 2006. Retrieved 9 May 2008.
- .
- ^ Heath, Jonathan. "Why does the Fahrenheit scale use 32 degrees as a freezing point?". PhysLink. Retrieved 9 May 2008.
- ISBN 9780077646479. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
- PMID 1302471.
- PMID 12000664. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
- ^ Zimmermann, Kim Ann (24 September 2013). "Fahrenheit: Facts, History & Conversion Formulas". Live Science. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
Further reading
- Bolton, Henry Carrington (1900). Evolution of the Thermometer, 1592–1743. Easton, Pennsylvania: The Chemical Publishing Company. pp. 66–79.
- Fahrenheit, D. G. (1724). "Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta (Experiments done on the degree of heat of a few boiling liquids)". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 33 (381): 1–3. .
- Fahrenheit, D. G. (1724). "Experimenta et Observationes de Congelatione aquae in vacuo factae". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 33 (381–391): 78–84. . (Latin)
- Klemm, Friedrich (1959), "Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 4, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 746–747
- Kops, J (1976). "Who was G.D. Fahrenheit?". Zdravotnická Pracovnice. Vol. 26, no. 2 (published February 1976). pp. 118–19. PMID 775856. (Czech)
- Lommel (1877), "Fahrenheit, Gabriel Daniel", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 6, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 535
- Friedrich Klemm (1959), "Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 4, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 746–747
- Middleton, W. E. Knowles (1966). A History of the Thermometer and its Use in Meteorology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press.
- Sorokina, T S (1986). "Creators of medical thermometry (on the 300th anniversary of the birth of Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit—24 May 1686 and on the 350th anniversary of the death of Santorio Santorio—22 February 1636)". Klinicheskaia Meditsina. Vol. 64, no. 10 (published October 1986). pp. 147–51. PMID 3543477. (Russian)
- Van Der Star, P., ed. (1984). Fahrenheit's Letters to Leibniz and Boerhaave. Editions Rodopi.
External links
- Letter from Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (scan) to Carl Linnaeus, 7 May 1736 n.s., [1] (in German)
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. VIII (9th ed.). 1878. p. 847. .
- Senese, Fred (2005). "Why isn't 0°F the lowest possible temperature for a salt/ice/water mixture?".
- Fahrenheit's papers in the Royal Society Publishing (in Latin)