Apparently, Daniel Farenheit was the inventor of the mercury thermometer (a significant improvement over the liquor-filled thermometers of the era), and his original procedure for calibrating it defined three points on a temperature scale: a solution of ammonium chloride in ice water should be zero degrees, the freezing point of water should be 30 degrees, and human body temperature should be 90 degrees. (That last one was a bit off—holding the other two points constant, it should have been 95.)
People soon noticed that there were very close to 180 degrees between the melting and boiling points of water, so the scale was changed a bit to redefine the freezing and boiling points of water to be exactly 180 degrees apart. In the current version of the Farenheit scale, the boiling point of water is 212 degrees, the freezing point of water is 32 degrees, and the standard value for human body temperature is 98.6 degrees. It’s not an elegant system, but by coincidence it does happen to be a pretty good scale for outdoor temperatures, which tend to range between 0 and 100 degrees (instead of between −20 and 40 degrees on the Celsius scale.).
350 degrees Farenheit, incidentally, happens to be a common temperature for baking food in an oven. 😆
::looks up Farenheit the person on Wikipedia::
Apparently, Daniel Farenheit was the inventor of the mercury thermometer (a significant improvement over the liquor-filled thermometers of the era), and his original procedure for calibrating it defined three points on a temperature scale: a solution of ammonium chloride in ice water should be zero degrees, the freezing point of water should be 30 degrees, and human body temperature should be 90 degrees. (That last one was a bit off—holding the other two points constant, it should have been 95.)
People soon noticed that there were very close to 180 degrees between the melting and boiling points of water, so the scale was changed a bit to redefine the freezing and boiling points of water to be exactly 180 degrees apart. In the current version of the Farenheit scale, the boiling point of water is 212 degrees, the freezing point of water is 32 degrees, and the standard value for human body temperature is 98.6 degrees. It’s not an elegant system, but by coincidence it does happen to be a pretty good scale for outdoor temperatures, which tend to range between 0 and 100 degrees (instead of between −20 and 40 degrees on the Celsius scale.).
350 degrees Farenheit, incidentally, happens to be a common temperature for baking food in an oven. 😆