GABRIEL DANIEL FAHRENHEIT (1686-1736), German physicist, was born at Danzig on the 14th of May 1686. For the most part he lived in England and Holland, devoting himself to the study of physics and making a living, apparently, by the manufacture of meteorological instruments. He was the author of important improvements in the construction of thermometers, and he introduced the thermometric scale known by his name and still extensively used in Great Britain and the United States (see Thermometry). He also invented an improved form of hygrometer, a description of which, together with accounts of various observations and experiments made by him, was published in the Phil. Trans. for 1724. He died in Holland on the 16th of September 1736.