Anders Celsius South Texas College Chem1411- General Chemistry I For Dr. Joe Studer Anders Celsius Although his name sounds like the conversant unit for temperature, he is also known for being a Swedish astronomer and a mathematician. His works contributed a lot to the scientific industry. From the beginning of his life, he always had the heart and brains of being very successful in his life. From accomplishing an expedition to making his mark in his hometown, Anders Celsius was very prosperous. Anders Celsius was born in January 27, 1701. Raised and born in Uppsala, Sweden, Anders was upraised as a Lutheran.
His family and he were Swedish. As he was growing up he always had the love for science and math. His father and grandfathers were good role models for Anders because they were intelligent successful people. The Celsius-Spole family ancestry shows a huge amount of achievements in the mathematics and science field. And this really reflected on Anders triumph as well. From a young age, Anders had this bewildering gift of being talented in mathematics. Magnus Celsius, who was a mathematician, and Anders Spole, who was an astronomer, both had an effect on Anders.
Considering the fact that his grandfathers were knowledgeable, his father was just as intelligent. Anders’ father, Nils Celsius, also had a big guidance and impact on him as well, bearing in mind that he was a professor in astronomy. Having his father and grandfathers to help him study, Anders was known to be a very brilliant mathematician from a very early age. Anders Celsius graduated Uppsala University in Sweden. The Uppsala University was where his father and grandfather taught at. Later on, Anders followed his father’s footsteps and became an astronomer.
Celsius took over his father’s job in 1730. Anders became illustrious when he was asked to be a subordinate in a prominent expedition in 1736 to 1737. This journey meant a lot to English and French astronomers because the controversy of the shape of the Earth was an ongoing dispute. Isaac Newton had a belief that Earth was a three-dimensional figure that is flattened at the poles. This voyage to the North was prepared by French Academy of Sciences, which was a society that invigorated French scientific research. They then commissioned diverse teams to go to the “ends” of the world.
These teams were sent all around the world to visit the North Pole. The French Academy of Sciences sent Pierre Louis Maupertuis, a mathematician, to explore the North “end”. Maupertuis then led the Lapland Expedition. Realizing that he couldn’t do it on his own, he asked Celsius to go ahead and join him as an assistant. Eventually, both Maupertuis and Celsius went on the expedition to Lapland which was a place within the heart of the Arctic Circle. The expedition did not just find the shape of the Earth that proved Newton’s theory, but also help Celsius gain the veneration that he needed for his future endeavors.
Throughout the Lapland expedition, Anders decided to make observations involving finding the shape of Earth. In 1738, Anders published “De observationibus pro figura telluris determinanda”or “Observations on Determining the Shape of the Earth”. Towards the end of the passage, Celsius gained a lot of deference in Sweden, government, and his close friends. His participation in finding the truth about the shape of the Earth helped Sweden gain interest in the science community. Therefore, Sweden authorities donated resources to build a new laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden.
Celsius initiated an observatory at Uppsala, Sweden in 1741. It was named “Astronomiska Observatorium” or simply “The Uppsala Astronomical Observatory”. This observatory contained technology that was new and up to date. This really helped scientists do experiments and do their research. Anders published a collection of observations of the aurora borealis in the observatory he established in Uppsala, Sweden. In 1853, they dismounted the building. The medieval building is now in the center of Uppsala where it housed the Celsius Observatory which is now preserved. Present day today, ust outside that medieval building, you can see a statue of Anders Celsius. In his own observatory, Celsius created one of his greatest accomplishments. He favored that there should be a division of temperature within a scale of a mercury thermometer. Anders suggested that the air pressure of 760mm should be put into 100 °C. One of the most known and obvious accomplishments of Anders was the famous Celsius thermometer. This Celsius thermometer (or “Centigrade”, how Anders would call it) was set to 0 °C to 100 °C. Anders proposed that zero would be the boiling point for water and hundred as the freezing point.
This was sometimes impracticable, so a year after Anders Celsius’ death, this man, Carl Linnaeus, in 1745, he decided to make more use of this Celsius thermometer and decided to reverse the numbers. This new measurement of temperature for various environments and scientific methods was more precise compared to Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit. Not only did Anders strive in his Celsius measurement, but as well in the astronomy field. With his assistant, Olof Hjorter, they were first to realize that the Aurora phenomenon had magnetic causes while leaning on a compass-needle.
Aurora or “Aurora Borealis” was an atmospheric occurrence consisting of bands of light caused by charged solar particles following the earth’s magnetic lines of force. They are known present day today as the “Northern Lights”. They found out that the larger the deviations correlated, the stronger the aurora was. After the works of the Celsius thermometer and the Aurora phenomenon, Celsius then became the secretary of the Royal Society of Sciences in 1725, which is the oldest Swedish scientific society founded in 1710, in Uppsala. Soon, Celsius wrote a book, Arithmetics for the Swedish Youth.
This was a book that he dedicated for the children of Sweden. Anders was a secretary until the day he died at an early age, 42, in April 25th of 1744. The infectious disease, tuberculosis, which attacks the lungs and other body parts, was spreading around the country. Eventually, the disease attacked Anders Celsius. He died of tuberculosis in 1744. He was then buried right next to his grandfather in their hometown. Although Celsius died at an early age, he accomplished very much in the time that he was corporeal. He was a very great astronomer in his time.
Without Anders people would not have a way to measure temperature. His assistances and offerings to the mathematical and scientific field have helped out with our knowledge and development of today in a magnifying way. Anders’ contributions were and still are very important in present day today. References: * http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Anders_Celsius * http://www. famousscientists. org/anders-celsius/ * http://www. stegen. k12. mo. us/tchrpges/sghs/aengelmann/CelsiusAnders2. htm * http://www. astro. uu. se/history/Celsius_eng. html
