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 Réaumur, who next sought to improve the thermometer, was one of the most popular savants in France; his position in the world of science as well as in that of society, was far more conspicuous than that of the humble artisan Fahrenheit, and his aristocratic station is evidenced by his full name: René Antoine Ferchault, Seigneur de Réaumur, des Angles et de la Bermondière. He early became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and for more than fifty years assiduously cultivated the sciences; his studies embraced the industrial arts, the physical and the natural sciences, and his publications were very numerous. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1731 he published a long paper entitled: "Rules for the Construction of Thermometers with Comparable Scales," which in its verbosity and prolixity contrasts strongly with Fahrenheit's conciseness.

Réaumur, like so many Frenchmen, completely ignored the thermometrical labors of the German, and rejected quicksilver, owing to its small coefficient of expansion; he sought by means of dilute alcohol to arrange a scale so that a definite change in volume would correspond to a definite rise or fall in temperature.