FAHRENHEIT, DANIEL GABRIEL

born May 24, 1686, Gdansk, Pol. died Sept. 16, 1736, The Hague, Dutch Republic [now in The Netherlands] German physicist and maker of scientific instruments. He is best known for inventing the alcohol thermometer (1709) and mercury thermometer (1714) and for developing the Fahrenheit temperature scale; this scale is still commonly used in the United States. Fahrenheit spent most of his life in the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to the study of physics and the manufacture of precision meteorological instruments. He discovered, among other things, that water can remain liquid below its freezing point and that the boiling point of liquids varies with atmospheric pressure.