Fahrenheit

Other temperature scales include celsius AKA centigrade and kelvin.

Supposedly 100 degrees Fahrenheit is supposedly the approximate rectal temperature of a healthy cow, according to Grzcyrgba, but I think that's serendipity.

Fahrenheit originally wanted the scale to be as 0 the coldest temperature he could get, and 100 degrees as the temperature of a healthy human. His calculations were off, maybe because the temperature in your mouth and ears and armpits and rectum is a few degrees off from your core temperature, and the average temperature of a human is actually at 98.6 degrees.

• 32 for -5 - 5°C
• 31 for 0-10°C
• 30 for 5-15°C
• 29 for 10-20°C
• 28 for 15-25°C

As you may have guessed, there is a point where Fahrenheit and Celsius coincide: -40°C = -40°F. Mathematically, this can be shown thus: since C = (5/9) * (F - 32), and since F = -40, then:
C = (5/9) * (-40 - 32)
C = (5/9) * (-72)
C = -360/9
C = -40

Since Celsius and Fahrenheit converge at one point, surely Fahrenheit and Kelvin do too? Well, yes. Since K=C + 273.15 (and hence C=K - 273.15), then:
K - 273.15 = (5/9) * (F - 32)
K = F ∴ K - 273.15 = (5/9) * (K - 32)
K = (5K/9) - (32*5)/9 + 273.15
4K/9 = 273.15 - 160/9
4K = 9(273.15) - 160
K = 2458.35/4 - 40
K = 614.5875 - 40
K = 574.5875
Hence, 574.5875K = 574.5875°F

Thanks to rootbeer277 for pointing out my error to me, and to Wntrmute, krimson, AspieDad and jrn for letting me know where I went wrong.

Fah"ren*heit (?) a. [G.]

Conforming to the scale used by Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit in the graduation of his thermometer; of or relating to Fahrenheit's thermometric scale.

n.

The Fahrenheit thermometer or scale.

⇒ The Fahrenheit thermometer is so graduated that the freezing point of water is at 32 degrees above the zero of its scale, and the boiling point at 212 degrees above. It is commonly used in the United States and in England.

© Webster 1913.