Re: tossing pancakes

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
0 F is SUPPOSED to be the temperature of ice melting in salt; and
100F is SUPPOSED to be human body temperature.

I think the common conception is that Fahrenheit is also based on freezing and boiling of fresh water, but that Herr Fahrenheit wanted those to temperatures to be positive. The idea that he chose 100 to approximate human body temp sounds reasonable, but ice truly melts at 32 degrees F. and boils at 212 degrees F at sea level. Those measures are accurate. Sea water freezes at about 28 degrees F. so that would be more than a minor error, if it is what he did. I'm reading an online encyclopedia that points out that it's 180 degrees between freezing and boiling. I notice that this is half a circle, so there may have been some attempt to tie the two together - the shared measurement term of degrees may be a clue. I don't know.

Bill
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