In 1742, he presented a proposal to the Swedish Academy of Sciences that all scientific measurements of temperature should be made on a fixed scale based on two invariable and naturally occurring points.
His scale defined 0° as the temperature at which water boils, and 100° as that at which water freezes. This scale, in an inverted form devised eight years later by his pupil Martin Strömer, has since been used in almost all scientific work.
For more details, see Centigrade as well as this Thermometer and Temperature Scale page.
His writing titled Recherches sur le spectre solaire (1868) presented an atlas of the solar spectrum with measurements of 1,000 spectral lines expressed in units of one-ten-millionth of a millimeter, the unit which later became the angstrom or ångstrom.