The Almanac

May 19

One thing science and human progress accomplished on this date.

  1. 1743

    The centigrade thermometer takes shape

    In Lyon, the physicist Jean-Pierre Christin unveiled a mercury thermometer marked with the centigrade scale, zero for freezing water and 100 for boiling, running the way we read it today. Splitting the everyday range of temperature into a clean hundred steps made heat something anyone could measure and compare.

    Source: Wikipedia

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