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[Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit]. Signed Thermometer Scale. Circa 1718. One of only three known signed instruments and the ...
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Description
"I was at once inflamed with a great desire to make for myself a thermometer of the same sort, so that I might with my own eyes perceive this beautiful phenomenon of nature, and be convinced of the truth..."
- Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
[Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit]. Signed Thermometer Scale.
Circa 1718. One of only three known signed instruments
and the only in private hands. Brass plate with later glass
mercury tube held in place by brackets at each end; measuring 4.5
inches. Marked with a graduated scale from [-4°] to 132°, numbered
by 4° increments on alternating sides of the tube and with lines
marking 2° increments, signed on the reverse "Fahrenheit Amst." One
small screw missing from the top bracket. Light, scattered
tarnishing.A truly stunning example of one of the more mysterious parts of scientific history. Though Fahrenheit is quite literally a household name, remarkably little is known about his life. Only a handful of his delicate signed brass instruments survive, including two mercury thermometers held by the Boerhaave Museum in the Netherlands and the present example, the only such instrument privately held.
Daniel G. Fahrenheit (1686-1736) was a European physicist, engineer, and glassblower, chiefly remembered for creating one of the first modern thermometers and developing the accompanying, self-titled, temperature scale. Though scientists invented a small variety of thermometers as early as the late-sixteenth century, not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did scientists began the process of developing comprehensive temperature scales based on fixed points, namely the boiling and freezing points of water. Fahrenheit tested a variety of liquids for use in his thermometers, eventually settling on mercury, and adapted several similar experiments of the time to develop the system we know today; simply: salt-water (sea water) begins to freeze at 0°, pure water begins to freeze at 32°, the human body (or human blood) hovers around 96-98°, and water begins to boil at 212°. Though the numbers seem rather arbitrary at first glance, this system is built with the added convenience of an exactly 180° difference between the freezing and boiling point of water, making it easily divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10, with no remainder, allowing for more precise measurements.
Translated from the Original Latin [Le Moyne College]: "About ten years ago I read in the History of the Sciences issued by the Royal Academy of Paris, that the celebrated Amontons, using a thermometer of his own invention, had discovered that water boils at a fixed degree of heat. I was at once inflamed with a great desire to make for myself a thermometer of the same sort, so that I might with my own eyes perceive this beautiful phenomenon of nature, and be convinced of the truth of the experiment."
Fahrenheit, "Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta," Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society of London, 1724.
Fahrenheit's work established the standard for recording temperatures in a variety of industries and remains the chief system in use in the United States today. A highly desirable piece, representing a keystone event in scientific history.
Provenance: Christie's, October 8, 2012, lot 69, £67,250.
Auction Info
2022 July 16 Historical Platinum Session Signature® Auction #6258 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
July, 2022
16th
Saturday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 6
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