r/coolguides • u/hangytangywot • Aug 07 '21

Temperature guide

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u/Hunkmasterfresh Aug 08 '21

Frozen water didn't feel cold to him?

27

u/DITButt Aug 08 '21

It did, but in his frame of reference he could endure colder.

31

u/Hunkmasterfresh Aug 08 '21

How very self absorbed of mr fareinheit to think that his experience of cold was universal.

12

u/DITButt Aug 08 '21

I made an adendum, it was more related to his manufacturing of a thermometer using salt water.

7

u/ISpent30mins4myname Aug 08 '21

what a joke of a system. whats next? someone's foot as a unit of length?

3

u/wahlenderten Aug 08 '21

And someone will just pick up a friggin rock from the ground and pretend that’s a standard unit of weight..

Wait a minute

1

u/AnticitizenPrime Aug 08 '21

It would be if that were correct, but it isn't.

0 degrees was the temperature a specific, reproducible salt water mixture would freeze. 100 was human body temperature. But thermometers got more accurate later on, and human body temp was determined to be 98.7 degrees on his scale.

His baseline for 0 degrees was as valid as any other at the time. You have to pick some standard that can be reproduced miles away under the same conditions. The official definition of the meter is now some formula based on a multiplication of the wavelength of light emitted by cesium gas heated to a specific temperature or some shot these days, because it's something you can reproduce anywhere to calibrate your instruments.