Centigrade Scale

A scale for measuring temperature. On the centigrade scale, pure water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°. Impurities and minerals (such as salt) in water change the temperature at which water freezes or boils. The United States, which uses the Fahrenheit scale, is one of the few countries in the world that has not made the conversion to centigrade. To convert a Fahrenheit temperature reading to centigrade, subtract 32 and multiply the remainder by 5/9. Centigrade is also known as Celsius for the Swedish astronomer who proposed it.