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Primary sourceArtifact1742

Celsius Original Thermometer Illustration

Anders Celsius · 1742

Celsius's own drawing of the thermometer design behind his temperature scale.

A drawing made by Celsius himself showing the physical instrument behind his famous scale.

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Line drawing of a long, slender thermometer with a bulb at the bottom and a graduated scale marked with letters and numbers including 150, 125, 100, 75, 50, 25, and 0 along its stem.
Anders Celsius, thermometer illustration, from Observations of Two Persistent Degrees on a Thermometer, 1742.

About this source

What it is

This is a line drawing by Anders Celsius himself, showing a thermometer with a graduated scale, published in his 1742 article on fixed temperature points.

Why it matters

This drawing lets students see exactly how Celsius built and marked the instrument that led to the modern Celsius scale. It connects the abstract idea of degrees to a real physical object he designed and used in his experiments.

Look closer

  • What do the numbers on the scale tell you about how the thermometer was meant to be read?
  • Why would a scientist need to draw and publish an illustration like this instead of just describing it in words?
  • What might this drawing leave out about how the thermometer was actually made or tested?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Anders Celsius on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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