Sunday, July 29, 2012

Temperature scales, explained


There's actually a whole discussion of English (pounds, horsepower, °F) vs. Metric (SI) and practical vs. theoretical hiding in that graph.

8 comments:

  1. I still say "Centigrade".
    Guess I'm stuck in the past.....

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  2. I was told once that 100° F. was supposed to be human body temperature, but that 18th-century measuring technology got it slightly wrong, hence our awkward 98.6° F.

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  3. Wolfwalker, LOL. I presume that you're from Wisconsin. I have one from back before 2004 which had absolute zero meaning that Hell had frozen over than the Red Sox had won the World Series.

    Chas, 100 as the Human temperature is within standard of error for the 17th century, when the Fahrenheit scale was devised.

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  4. Never been to Wisconsin in my life. But I enjoy regional humor, as long as it's not nasty-to-others.

    On second thought, amend that: as long as it's not nasty-to-others ... or the others it's nasty to deserve it. Say, Californians or Yankees fans.

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  5. Chas: As I heard the story, 100F was supposed to be human body temperature, as you've pointed out, and 0F was supposed to be the coldest temperature that humans could make on demand, with a mixture of ice and salt.

    Now I want home made ice cream.

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