[QUOTE=ewmayer;420735]As a computer geek, I appreciate the base-2 aspect of many of the 'obsolete' system...[/QUOTE]

I hate to admit it, but I generally agree with you. Although I would argue it goes deeper than that...

Working with numbers that are easily dividable by 2, 3 and 5 means that (many) people can quickly do the maths "in their head" using simple "folding".

But, please, give me a break... When did the Fahrenheit scale ever make real sense? :smile:

(I'm now about to go out for New Years dinner, and then Fire Works.)

[QUOTE=chalsall;420743]I hate to admit it, but I generally agree with you. Although I would argue it goes deeper than that...

Working with numbers that are easily dividable by 2, 3 and 5 means that (many) people can quickly do the maths "in their head" using simple "folding".

But, please, give me a break... When did the Fahrenheit scale ever make real sense? :smile:

(I'm now about to go out for New Years dinner, and then Fire Works.)[/QUOTE]When Fahrenheit invented it.

Normal human body temperature is 100F and the coldest temperature which can be made by adding salt to ice is 0F.

Both the above limits are approximations of course, but it made sense at the time.

[QUOTE=xilman;420807]the coldest temperature which can be made by adding salt to ice is 0F.[/QUOTE]
Interesting, I didn't know how he established the lower point of the scale (I guessed about the hundred, never researched the subject). Was that, at the time, the lowest temperature man could produce? (it would make even more sense, but I believe it was not, some winters are colder than that, which makes me wonder, if you go out and collect snow at -30C (-22F) and add salt to it, what's happening?).

Edit: Policemen had a written examination for rank advancement. One of the questions was "at which temperature the water boils". After the examination, all of them discussing on the corridor. One says "what the hack, I answered to everything except that one with the water", all the others confirmed that nobody answered to the question, except one which seemed more cocky and clever than the others "well, I answered to that!", "how? how?" all the others, curios. "C'mon, you should know that" says the cocky, "the water boils at 100 degrees". The first one looks very upset, "shit! I was so close, I knew that at 90 degrees it makes a right angle!"

(this joke is funnier in my language, due to language puns, we use the same word for degrees and police/army ranks, which is also equivalent to the english "[URL="https://www.google.com/search?q=define+grade"]grades[/URL]")

[QUOTE=xilman;420807]When Fahrenheit invented it.

Normal human body temperature is 100F and the coldest temperature which can be made by adding salt to ice is 0F.[/QUOTE]Actually 96 was the chosen body temperature. With 32 being the temperature of ice-water.
[TEX]96 - 32 = 64[/TEX]
64 is easy to divide up. Making it an instrument makers dream vs. 100 that the other guy used.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History"]Or so the legend goes[/URL]

Bill says it....
 

...

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;420855]Actually 96 was the chosen body temperature. With 32 being the temperature of ice-water.
[TEX]96 - 32 = 64[/TEX]
64 is easy to divide up. Making it an instrument makers dream vs. 100 that the other guy used.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History"]Or so the legend goes[/URL][/QUOTE]Thank you for the clarification. It's clear from that article that the true history is complex and that there have been several explanations over time. The body heat at 100F is the version I was taught at school and I've never questioned it until now.

[QUOTE=xilman;421088]The body heat at 100F is the version I was taught at school and I've never questioned it until now.[/QUOTE]I think that he also used the armpit vs. under tongue. That would make it closer to 96 than 37C.

[SIZE=3]Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth about [URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/"]global temperature data[/URL][/SIZE]
How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it must be done.
[QUOTE]There are entire blogs dedicated to uncovering the conspiracy to alter the globe's temperature. The premise is as follows—through supposed “adjustments,” nefarious scientists manipulate raw temperature measurements to create (or at least inflate) the warming trend. People who subscribe to such theories argue that the raw data is the true measurement; they treat the term “adjusted” like a synonym for “fudged.”

[URL="http://www.peter-thorne.net/"]Peter Thorne[/URL], a scientist at Maynooth University in Ireland who has worked with all sorts of global temperature datasets over his career, disagrees. “Find me a scientist who’s involved in making measurements who says the original measurements are perfect, as are. It doesn’t exist,” he told Ars. “It’s beyond a doubt that we have to—[I]have to[/I]—do some analysis. We can’t just take the data as a given.”[/QUOTE]

Well, after we, indeed, had here in 2015 the warmest October in 16 years, about 2 Celsius above the first runner October - remark that I did not say "above the average October"! - we have now in 2016 the coldest January in 16 years, with rains (!) and +10C in the morning. The 16 years measures only the time since I live here, I have no first-hand knowledge of what it was before. The mother Climate is a bitch... :smile:

[QUOTE=LaurV;424066]we have now in 2016 the coldest January in 16 years, with rains (!) and +10C in the morning.[/QUOTE]Exactly what we have here. I'm at 51N at what should be the coldest time of the winter.

[URL="http://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KILCHICA179&scrollTo=historyTable#history/tdata/s20150124/e20160125/myear"]Chicago experienced prolonged warm spells[/URL] up until the end of 2015. Here, near Lake Michigan, we only touched on freezing in mid to late November. We did not see truly seasonable cold until the middle of January.

(Scroll down to the Weather History Table.)