The Celsius temperature scale, which measures heat or cold, from 0 degrees Celsius for frozen water, to 100 degrees Celsius for boiling water, was invented by Anders Celsius, a Swedish Astronomer. Celsius named the scale he developed in 1742, the centigrade scale, and one may occasionally still see temperatures listed in centigrade. In 1954, however, scientists officially named the temperature scale after Anders Celsius to honor his work.

Anders Celsius’ scale differs from the modern use of Celsius. He set zero as the boiling point of water and one hundred as its freezing point. This was reversed shortly after his death to the more modern scale.

One of the advantages of the modern scale is that the calculations from 0-100 are far easier than Fahrenheit calculations. 0 degrees Celsius is equivalent to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The boiling point of water, under one degree of atmospheric pressure, is 100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The base 100 method is simply easier to calculate than the more complex Fahrenheit formula. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit follows this basic formula F = (C x 1.8) + 32.

Today most countries use Celsius measurements, not simply for the weather, but for temperature measurements in baking and other applications. Scientists throughout the world use a combination of Celsius measurement and Kelvin measurements. Kelvin measurements are based on the fixed points of absolute zero, where nothing could be colder, and all matter solidifies, and the triple point of water, where gas, liquid and solid water are equally used. Kelvin is particularly useful for discussing extreme temperatures.

In the US, we typically use the Fahrenheit scale in daily use, but most weather channels also give the conversion to Celsius. Cookbooks made in the US usually give Celsius conversions as well, since baking would be completely thrown off by following Fahrenheit scales in a Celsius measure oven. Imagine the results of a cake baked for an hour at 325 C (625 F). Actually most ovens cannot reach that temperature, but if they could the results would be disastrous.