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Celsius The designation given to the temperature measured on the International Practical Temperature Scale with the zero taken as 0.01° below the triple point of water. Formerly called centigrade temperature, but the Ninth General Conference of Weights and Measures, held in October 1948, adopted the name Celsius in preference to centigrade, to be consistent with naming other temperature scales after their inventors, and to avoid the use of different names in different countries. On the original Celsius scale, invented in 1742 by a Swedish astronomer named Andress Celsius, the numbering was the reverse of the modern scale, 0° C representing the boiling point of water, and 100° C its freezing point. This scale is compared with the Fahrenheit scale in G154. The equations which relate them are given in G119.

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