centigrade scale

A temperature scale in everyday use, proposed by the Swedish physicist Anders Celsius (1701-1744) in 1742, which assigns the value zero (t = 0 ºC) to the freezing point of ice and one hundred (t = 100 ºC) to the boiling point of water, under normal pressure conditions in both cases. The temperature range considered spans a total of one hundred degrees on the scale, hence its name. Although it is common to refer to degrees centigrade, the unit on this thermometric scale is the degree Celsius (ºC) and temperature values should be expressed as such. The equivalence between this scale and the absolute or Kelvin scale is given by the relationship: t (ºC) = T (K) – 273.15. It is also known as the Celsius scale, in memory of its inventor. As an anecdote, it should be noted that Celsius, in his original scale, assigned 0 to the boiling point of water and 100 to the freezing point. Later, in the centigrade scale that came into use, the order of that pair of reference values was reversed.