> Anyone know the boiling point of water in Celcius and Farenheit?
> Another kewl reason for metrification - 100 degrees Celsius or 212
> degrees Fahrenheit - which one is easier to remember and calculate
against!?
>
These two temperature scales are intersting in that they both in fact have
arbitary starting and end points, but the scales have decimal links.
Farenheit wanted to standardise his scale, so he selected the coolest
constant that he could find - the temperature of pure melting ice and salt
mixture. 0deg F
For his maximum he selected human body temperature (as best that he could
measure - or perhaps he had a fever) 100deg F and assigned a 100 divisions
between his two fixed points. Extending this scale gave 212 as the boiling
point of water.
Celsius based his scale on melting point of ice and boiling point of water.
Again there were a hundred divisions assigned between the two fixed points.
Riaumur was the odd ball - he used the melting point of ice as zero. and
used the boiling point of water at the upper end, but only assigned 80
divisions to the space between - (Perhaps he had a ruler graduated in eights
of an inch)
The Kelvin scale is based on the notion of 'absolute zero' where all motion
ceases. The incremental unit for expressing Kelvin temp is the Celcius
division. (Rankin started at 'abosolute zero' but used the Farenheit
division)
Celcius is generally easier to work with (in metric countries) though
because it is more uniformly integrated into the metric heat units system.
(KJoule etc)
In non metric countries I suppose the F is used along with the Btu ( British
thermal unit) for engineering work, although I suspect research labs etc use
meric units.
Cheers
Ian F
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