Olof Celsius
Olof Celsius (the elder) (19 July 1670 – 24 June 1756) was a Swedish botanist, philologist and clergyman. He was a professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Celsius was a mentor of the botanist and scientist Carl Linnaeus.
Born~Died Jul 19, 1670 ~ Jun 24, 1756Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 4:41 PM
Olof Celsius (the elder) (19 July 1670 – 24 June 1756) was a Swedish botanist, philologist and clergyman. He was a professor at Uppsala University, Sweden.1 Celsius was a mentor of the botanist and scientist Carl Linnaeus. Celsius wrote his most famous book on biblical plants, Hierobotanicon, in 1745–47. Celsius was also a prominent runologist.2
Olof Celsius's father was the mathematician Magnus Celsius and his nephew Anders Celsius (son of his brother and astronomy professor Nils Celsius) was an astronomer who invented a temperature scale where 100 originally represented the freezing point of water and 0 represented the boiling point.34 Jean-Pierre Christin, in 1744 reversed the scale to create the centigrade scale, renamed in 1948 to the Celsius scale in use today. Noted Swedish dramatic poet and actor Johan Celsius was also his brother.5
Celsius was the father of Bishop of Lund Olof Celsius the Younger and historian and librarian Magnus von Celse.
Olof Celsius was made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1739.
Notes
Footnotes
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Retrieved on June 24, 2008 ↩
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Thunberg, Carl L., Ingvarståget och dess monument (”The Ingvar Expedition and its Monuments”), University of Gothenburg, 2010, p. 13. ↩
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Johan Celsius My Heritage ↩
This page is based on “Olof Celsius” from English Wikipedia, (r1316088036) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 4:41 PM · r127754 · Text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.