Temperature

In order to understand how temperatures are measured you have to understand thermal equilibrium (impressive words huh).  Basically, when you put a hot object next to a cold one, the heat from the hot object will transfer to the cold object making both objects warm.

That’s exactly what happens to a thermometer.  The mercury inside (in the old days we used mercury) rises and falls when it is heated or cooled.

Gabriel Fahrenheit came up with his scale in 1724.  He measured boiling water at 212 degrees, and then he adjusted the freezing point at 32 so the interval would be 180.  That is the cool thing about inventing stuff.  You get to set the scale where ever you want.  Gabriel was also the first guy to use mercury in his thermometer.

Just like every other invention, Fahrenheit’s scale was improved upon in 1745 by Carolus Linnaeus.  He invented a centigrade scale making 0 when water freezes and 100 when it boils.

Centigrade and Celsius are about the same thing but don’t let the scientists hear you say that.  Both Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales are widely used today.  Watch the notation behind a temperature closely because the scales are very different.

Fahrenheit and Centigrade are good scales to measure the temperature but arctic fronts in January will always to cold.  Frigid even.  BRRR.

Pack out what you pack in.

 

Sources:

Website:  http://eo.ucar.edu/skymath/tmp2.html