Physicist, born in Gda?sk, N Poland (formerly Danzig, Germany). He invented the alcohol thermometer in 1709, following this with a mercury thermometer in 1714. He spent most of his life in The Netherlands.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit) (24 May 1686 in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) – 16 September 1736 in The Hague, Netherlands) was a German physicist and engineer who worked most of his life in the Netherlands. The °F Fahrenheit scale of temperature is named after him.
Biography
Fahrenheit was born in the Hanseatic city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), where the German-speaking Fahrenheit family had moved to in 1650. He was the son of merchant Daniel Fahrenheit and Concordia Fahrenheit (widowed name, Runge), daughter of the well-known Danzig business family of Schumann. Daniel was the eldest of the five Fahrenheit children who survived childhood (two sons, three daughters). Daniel's grandfather Reinhold Fahrenheit from Kneiphof had moved to Danzig from Königsberg and settled as a merchant. Research suggests that the Fahrenheit family originated in Hildesheim, although they lived in Rostock before moving to Königsberg.
Upon the accidental early death of his parents, probably caused by consumption of poisonous mushrooms, Gabriel had to take up business training, as a merchant in Amsterdam.
Fahrenheit scale
Fahrenheit developed precise thermometers. The Fahrenheit scale was widely used in Europe until the switch to the Celsius scale.
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