A Skilled Toolmaker, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit's guardian sent him to Amsterdam in 1701 to study commerce after his parents unexpectedly passed away. Evidently, it was there that Fahrenheit first learned about and developed a fascination for the relatively niche and fast-expanding industry of manufacturing scientific equipment. He started his years of traveling around the year 1707, during which time he observed the methods used by other scientists and instrument builders to learn the tricks of their trade.

Fahrenheit was busy creating thermometers before coming up with the concept of a temperature scale. In 1714, the first two thermometers were created. Those thermometers measured alcohol. Fahrenheit began researching and working with mercury a little later. He finally decided to switch alcohol for mercury. Fahrenheit is credited with creating the most accurate and valuable thermometers. Nearly two decades passed following the creation of the first mercury thermometer before the precise manufacturing method for the thermometers was discovered. Fahrenheit also created the thermobarometer, which uses the water's boiling temperature to calculate barometric pressure.