Fahrenheit, Daniel

Fahrenheit, Daniel (Gabriel)

(born May 24, 1686, Gdansk, Pol.—died Sept. 16, 1736, The Hague, Dutch Republic) German physicist and instrument maker. He spent most of his life in the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to the study of physics and the manufacture of precision meteorological instruments. He is best known for inventing a successful alcohol thermometer (1709) and mercury thermometer (1714) and for developing the Fahrenheit temperature scale, setting zero at the freezing point of an equal mixture of ice and salt. He discovered that water can remain liquid below its freezing point and that the boiling point of liquids varies with atmospheric pressure.