Lowercase Street Signs by 2018

[vince]

That's because Fahrenheit designed the scale using reference points based on (gasp! shock!) ordinary human experience.

He set the zero point at the freezing temperature of a brine solution. Salts lower the freezing point of solutions...the particular ammonium salt he used freezes at temperatures 32° below the point where plain water freezes.

He also set 100° to be the temperature registered on the thermometer when held in the mouth...normal human body temperature.

As later measurements became more precise, the scale was altered to set the boiling point of plain water exactly 180° above its freezing point, which resulted in normal body temperature being shifted down slightly to 98.6°.

None of that seems systematic to me. Very arbitrary... This human doesn't normally make his ice cubes from ammonium brine.

I think using normal human experience, I would set zero at the freezing point of water and 100 at the point where a Hershey Bar turns to mush.

 

[Bbucko]

^^^See above for HG's research into Farenheit. ^^^

For the record, I'm aware of how the Centigrade scale was formed: as has been said by both HG and Vince (who disagree only on minor details), it is a clumsy and vaguely non-nonsensical way of describing the way we, as humans living on Earth, experience temperature.

Also for the record, I'll also say that meters seem rather large and kilos seem a trifle heavy, though liters seem about right. I base this strictly on having lived my entire life (except for my years in Paris) living with feet, pounds and quarts, miles, gallons, yards, inches, etc.

I am consistently amazed that people who use the incredibly arbitrary and insanely complex grammar of Romance languages find our measuring methods so byzantine

Any attempt to change the way Americans deal with measurements should have been long ago, at the very latest in the years immediately following WW2. Since it didn't happen then, there's no practical chance of it happening now, short of a revolution or occupation, neither of which seems likely

Hey Bbucko! I used the same math when trying to explain wather forecasts to our american clients when getting ready to go to the field to hunt. 'm not sure what natural event correlates with Farenheit temperatures, but in Centigrade you have 0 degree for water freezing point and 100 degrees for boiling point.

 

[maxcok]

Any attempt to change the way Americans deal with measurements should have been long ago, at the very latest in the years immediately following WW2. Since it didn't happen then, there's no practical chance of it happening now, short of a revolution or occupation, neither of which seems likely

About as likely as making Esperanto the official language.