this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
1375 points (99.8% liked)
196
16243 readers
1894 users here now
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Fever is not 100F. A fever is defined as 100.4F. Why 100.4 when 100 is a much easier to remember and handle number? Because fever is defined in humans as 38C, and that converts to 100.4F.
It's been a while but I think they tried to establish 100F as the average human body temperature. But after they established that baseline turns out they were off by 1.4 degrees and couldn't change it.
People's body temperature used to be higher a century ago, but I think it was less then 1°C.
EDIT: Apparently since the early 1800s, men's body temperature changed about 0.59°C and women's about 0.32°C.
That's really interesting. Does anyone know why?
I believe there's a theory that the average person had at least one source of inflammation in their body.
Hasn't the fever temperature changed recently or something
You're right. April 8th 2000 Christopher Walken caught a fever that changed the course of history forever. He had a fever and the only cure was more cow bell.
He kept that uncomfortable hunk of metal up his ass.
That's a sigfig error. A fever is 38C, which is 2 significant digits. Converting to 100° F goes up an order of magnitude so you get a free sigfig, but unless the original number was 38.0C, you don't get that 0.4, you're implying precision that the original measurement never gave you.
But the fever definition wasn't that precise. They took the average temperature, 36.88 C, rounded it up to 37 C, and somewhat arbitrarily defined a fever as 1 C above the (rounded) average. Which is perfectly fine, but it means the equivalent in Fahrenheit is 100, not 100.4.
Who defines it like that? I'm asking because I wouldn't be surprised if the definition differs between orgs
It's actually an irrational number, but for most purposes 100.4159F is a perfectly reasonable approximation.
No I was wondering who defines it as 37C/100.4F
IUPAC
°F and °C, unless you're speaking of Coulomb and Farad.