degree Celsius

Also known as Celsius, °C, centigrade, ℃, degree centigrade, degrees Celsius, degrees centigrade

AI overview

The degree Celsius (°C) is a standard unit for measuring temperature used around the world as part of the International System of Units, named after Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius who developed it in 1742. It matters because it provides a consistent, widely-recognized way to express both specific temperatures and temperature differences, making communication about temperature precise and universally understandable.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Key facts

Unit.name: degree Celsius
Unit.image: File:Melting ice thermometer.jpg
Unit.caption: A thermometer calibrated in degrees Celsius, showing a temperature of in a glass of ice and water
Unit.standard: SI
Unit.quantity: temperature
Unit.symbol: °C
Unit.namedafter: Anders Celsius
Unit.convertfromx: yes
Unit.units1: Kelvin
Unit.inunits1: ( + 273.15) K
Unit.units2: Fahrenheit
Unit.inunits2: ( + 32) °F

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Show 4 more facts

Unicode character: ℃
Commons category: Celsius temperature
unit symbol: °C
Wikidata SPARQL query equivalent: wd:Q25267 p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?source; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. ?item p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?target; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. BIND(?source / ?target as ?value)

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~14 min read

Article

12 sections

Contents

History
Centigrade and Celsius
Common temperatures
Name and symbol typesetting
Unicode character
Temperatures and intervals
Coexistence with Kelvin
Melting and boiling points of water
See also
Explanatory notes
References
External links

The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale (originally known as the centigrade scale in English), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the closely related Kelvin scale. The degree Celsius (symbol: °C) can refer to a specific point on the Celsius temperature scale or to a difference or range between two temperatures. It is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744), who proposed the first version of it in 1742. The unit was called centigrade in several languages (from the Latin centum, which means 100, and gradus, which means steps) for many years. In 1948, the International Committee for Weights and Measures renamed it to honor Celsius and also to remove confusion with the term for one hundredth of a gradian in some languages. Most countries use this scale, with the exception of the United States, some island territories, and Liberia, where the Fahrenheit scale is still used.

Throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, the scale was based on for the freezing point of water and for the boiling point of water at 1 atm pressure. (In Celsius's initial proposal, the values were reversed: the boiling point was 0 degrees and the freezing point was 100 degrees.)