Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer who made the first ever attempts to measure the brightness of stars using instruments other than the eye. Like many scientists we have discussed in Who were they?, Celsius did not confine himself to a single area of science.
Among Celsius’s other interests was carrying out geographical measurements in Sweden. One expedition involved measuring the distance equivalent to one degree of latitude in Lapland, which confirmed Newton’s suggestion that the Earth is flatter at the poles. From other measurements he deduced that the level of the Baltic Sea was falling. It was suggested that this might be due to evaporation, or plants in the sea taking up the water and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. In fact, the land mass of Scandinavia had been rising since the ice age as the weight of ice on the land diminished.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
