this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Fahrenheit measured human body temperature (which he thought was a constant) and called that 96 degrees. We now know normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees F, but back then, his instruments weren't as accurate. The number 96 was chosen for its divisibility. It has many divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 96), making it easier to mark subdivisions on the thermometer.

It's a scale partly defined by human body temperature, which is, I think, the point.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

There are many stories on how Fahrenheit came up with the scale, the body temperature one is just one of many. It's no more true than the one where he took the Romero scale as baseline and multiplied it by 4 to get rid of the factorial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Wait, he chose 96, or he measured it?