Fahrenheit: [18] The ‘pre-metrication’ temperature scale takes its name from its inventor, the German physicist Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736). Not only did he develop the idea of a scale in which ice melts at 32º and water boils at 212º, he also invented the mercury thermometer.
temperature scale, 1753, named for Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736), Prussian physicist who proposed the scale in 1714. The "zero" in it is arbitrary, based on the lowest temperature observed by him during the winter of 1709 in Danzig. An abstract surname meaning literally "experience."
