stupid Fahrenheit system

[Bill McBlueState]

Around here we've been experiencing the minus side of the Fahrenheit scale lately.

But what does 0 degrees F mean anyway?

The Celsius scale has some physical meaning - water freezes at 0 and boils at 100. But does anyone know where they came up with the Fahrenheit scale?

We need to go metric!!

on edit: fixed spelling

[Kamika]

1. yeah I think..

I think he put 100 degrees as the body temperature

[pmbryant]

2. It's all just arbitrary numbers anyway

Why don't we go Kelvin? ;-)

There, zero really means zero!

:bounce:

--Peter

[NoPasaran]

3. I think Zero

Was the coldest temperature that Fahrenheit was able to produce in his lab.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Supposedly ...

Gabriel Farenheit initially set zero as the coldest winter temperature expected in Europe, and 100 as the average body temperature; he then re-calibrated the distance from the freezing point to the boiling point of water as 180, as degrees in a circle. That's why we say, "fifty degrees", not "fifty Farenheits".

Celsius, of course, took freezing and boiling and divided the range in 100 segments, which were then called degrees, after GF's system. Kelvin -- and Rankine -- were named after scientists, and are based on Absolute Zero. Think of Rankine as a Farenheit system based on Absolute Zero.

If there's more than that, let me know.

--bkl

[RC]

5. No we don't

Fahrenheit is almost twice as accurate as the Celsius scale. There are 180 points to the Fahrenheit scale to 100 on the Celsius scale.

[Kamika]

6. one funny thing with F

at like -43 or so Celsius and Fahrenheit collide

[Bill McBlueState]

8. yeah, but...

You can use as many places after the decimal as you want! :D

Besides, for every day "what's it like outside" talk, is there some important difference between 42F and 43F that would be lost if we just said it's 6C?

[NoPasaran]

7. It should be a seasonal thing

Like Daylight Savings Time. If we used Celsius in the summer, maybe Texas wouldn't seem so damn hot.

[Flightful]

9. Zero F

He chose it because it's the freezing point of seawater.

[Kellanved]

10. Wikipedia

--snip
Fahrenheit established zero degrees as the temperature at which an equal mixture of ice and salt melts (some say he took that fixed mixture of ice and salt that produced the lowest temperature); and ninety-six degrees as the temperature of a healthy human body. Initially, his scale had only contained 12 equal subdivisions, but then later he divided each division into 8 equal degrees ending up with 96. He then observed that plain water would freeze at 32 degrees and boil at 212 degrees.

His measurements were not entirely accurate, though; by his original scale, the actual freezing and boiling points would have been slightly different than 32 and 212. Some time after his death, the error was discovered, and it was decided to recalibrate the scale with 32 and 212 being the actual freezing and boiling points of plain water. This resulted in the healthy human body temperature being 98.6 degrees rather than 96.

--snap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit

I wonder why he took the salt/water/ice mixture for zero - doesn't make sense to me.

[camero]

11. -18C

It's what I always went by when I was hauling flowers to canada. Then it was cold.

[Minnesota Twin]

12. I too think we should go to the metric system...

every other country in this world uses it, we might as well also. It'll lessen the confusion when we go overseas. :)

[alfredo]

13. F to C converter

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm

It is 3 C outside.

[alfredo]

14. C to F converter

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm

It is 38 F outside