Paris, the Second of May 1724
To Daniel
Gabriel Fahrenheit
Sir,
I am writing this letter in order to
settle a little dispute of ours. I was meeting today with Monsieur
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur at the observatory to share ideas
about our preliminary work on temperature measurements, and it
turns out we have opposite views on the zero of our
scales.
We have just read the publication of
your work and noticed with great disappointment that you have taken
yet another approach to this matter. Therefore, we would like to
meet in person to bring this issue to closure once and for all. So
that everyone feels on his own turf, we have agreed that you would
choose the latitude of our meeting point and we would pick the
longitude.
Knowing your love for round numbers,
there is no doubt in my mind about the value you will select and I
shall make it my own.
In return, Monsieur de Réaumur who is
fascinated in Mother Nature's clockwork, has requested that the
longitude equals his exact age in sidereal years. Based on this,
you will have to make your own adjustments.
We would like to express our great
consideration for your work and are looking forward to meeting you
at this location. In honour of your presence, a little magnetic
time capsule shall be left at the spot to commemorate the
event.
Sincerely
Yours,
Anders
Celsius
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