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Most people who know of Réaumur know him because of his thermometer. He did not invent this machine, but he worked very hard to standardize its function. Before him, these machines worked one by one and each gave nothing more than a general idea of their meter. Réaumur first worked to make his meter's completely identical in their measure (a guy named Fahrenheith had the same idea at about the same time). Réaumur established zero as the freezing point of water and was able to catch that in his machine. He established 80 as the boiling point of alcohol, thus his scale from 0 to 80. This carried France through to the Revolution -- and it made raising bees and chickens much more efficient --, but the Revolution itself was to carry this logic to its fullest conclusion. The transformation was simple: zero for water, 100 for water: freezing to boiling -- that's the metric systems used throughout the world today. Finally, I don't often ask you to judge my pictures, but today please note how this thermometer and Kelly Mascola behind it work together...
