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Member Number: 4334
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (24 May 1686 – 16 September 1736) was a German physicist and engineer who worked most of his life in the Dutch Republic. The °F Fahrenheit scale of temperature is named after him.
Fahrenheit was born in Danzig in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on 14 May 1686. The Fahrenheit family were merchants that had moved from one Hanseatic League city to the other. Fahrenheit's great-grandfather had lived in Rostock, although research suggests that the Fahrenheit family originated in Hildesheim. Daniel's grandfather Reinhold Fahrenheit vom Kneiphof moved from Kneiphof (Königsberg) to Danzig and settled there as a merchant in 1650. Father Daniel married Concordia (widowed name, Runge), daughter of the well-known Danzig business family of Schumann. Daniel Gabriel was the eldest of the five Fahrenheit children who survived childhood (two sons, three daughters).
Upon the accidental early death of his parents, by consumption of poisonous mushrooms, Gabriel had to take up business training, as a merchant in Russia. However, his interest in natural sciences caused him to take up studies and experimentation in that field, and after travelling around, he settled 1717 in The Hague with the trade of glassblowing, making barometer, altimeter and thermometer. From 1718 onwards, he gave lectures in chemistry in Amsterdam, and became a member of the Royal Society in 1724. Fahrenheit died in The Hague.
Mercury Thermometers
Fahrenheit developed precise thermometers. He filled his first thermometers with alcohol before using mercury, the latter giving better results.
Fahrenheit scale
Fahrenheit needed to associate a scale with his thermometers in order to use them to record temperature. His initial work with a temperature scale was based on three benchmarks. His low temperature mark was the coldest temperature attainable under laboratory conditions at that time: a mixture of water, ice and ammonium chloride. Fahrenheit defined that as 0°F (approx. -17.8°C). Next was the freezing point of water, which he set at 32°F. Finally, he defined the human body temperature as 96°.
Later, with the aid of a mercury thermometer that could measure higher temperatures, Fahrenheit adjusted his scale so the high end was the boiling point of water, which he put at 212°F. With the adjustment, normal human body temperature moved to the now familiar 98°F. Fahrenheit's final temperature scale has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water.
The Fahrenheit scale was widely used in Europe until the switch to the degree Celsius scale. It is still used for everyday temperature measurements by the general population in the United States and less so in the UK.
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Daniel Fahrenheit News and Information
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 Telegraph.co.uk | New Zealand welcome back Daniel Vettori Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Vettori is also likely to face a 50-degree drop in temperature from the 100-plus Fahrenheit recorded in Delhi yesterday. Vettori and Ross Taylor, ... |
 Bleacher Report | Orioles 3, White Sox 3: The Good, Bad, and Indifferent Bleacher Report, CA - When this game finally got underway after a 2:05 rain delay, the temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit. It was raining all game and, by the tenth inning, ... |
LNG proposals pose new threat Asbury Park Press, NJ - John Adler, D-Camden, and Andrew R. Ciesla, R-Ocean, who sit on the Senate Environment Committee, and Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, R-Ocean, ... |
Carlyle Scrounges for Buyouts in Dubai as Rubenstein Rues Fund Bloomberg - After George W. Bush was elected president and amid publicity including Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which criticized Carlyle for its ... |
 ComingSoon.net | Doc Week: The Return of Morgan Spurlock ComingSoon.net - Spurlock: Yeah, well the people that we brought, like it was Daniel Marraccino. Most of the time just he and I were the band, it was myself and Daniel, ... |
America’s Shame Atlantic Free Press, Netherlands - Michael Moore calls this Fahrenheit 911 – the temperature at which truth spontaneously ignites! I will also admit at the outset that I employ the definition ... |
This week in books Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, NY - The Big Read: Programs related to the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Del Rey, $6.99). For more, go to www.libraryweb.org. ... |
The Earthship Has Landed Walrus Magazine, Canada - Inside, the temperature fluctuated as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of a day, and several of its glass facades were oriented so that they ... |
Senators: Will home ice be the perfect remedy? Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA - "We saw we can play together," Gerber added, a reference to a team torn asunder by injuries to star-captain Daniel Alfredsson and center Mike Fisher. ... |
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