Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1904 — THERMOMETER DEGREES. [ARTICLE]

THERMOMETER DEGREES.

The Seale Invented t»jr Jfewton aad AmplUel bjr Fahrenheit. Why should the freezing point be marked 32 degrees and the boiling point 212 degrees on ibe Fahrenheit thermometer scale? Most students know that its Inventor divided the space between these points into 180 degrees Instead of the simpler 100 degrees used in the Centigrade System, but few understand how this number came to be chosen. A writer thus ex- | plains the matter: The thermometer was really invented by Sir Isaac Newton. He started his scale with the heat of the human body and used as his instrument a glass tube filled with linseed oil. The lowest figure on the scale was the freezing point and the highest point boiling water. The starting point of this scale, as \ mentioned, was the heat off the human body, which he called by the round number 12, as the duodecimal system was then in common use. He divided the space between the freezing point and the temperature of the body into 12 points and stated that the boiling point of water would be about 30, as the temperature must be nearly three times that of the human body. When Fahrenheit took up the subject a few years later be used the Newton instrument, but, finding the scale not fine enough, divided each degree into two parts and so made the measure between thefreezlng and boiling points 24 parts Instead of 12. Fahrenheit then discovered that he obtain a lower degree of cold than freezing, and, taking a mixture of ice and salt for a starting point, he counted 24 points up to body heat. By this measurement he obtained 8 for the freezing point and 53 for the boiling point. His scale now read: Zero, freezing, 8; body heat, 24, and boiling water, 53. It will be noticed that this scale is identically that of Newton’s, only starting lower and having the numbers doubled. It was with this scale that Fabren* heit worked for a long time, but finally, finding the temperature divisions still too large, he divided each degree Into four parts. Multiplying the numbers just given by four the thermometer scale now in use results. The chance choice of Newton of the figure 12 to represent the body heat determined the present thermometer scale, even as the yard, foot and inch measures originally came from measures of parts of the human body, and as the width of a railroad carriage was determined by the track, which in turn was determined by the width between the cart wheels necessary to bear a load which could comfortably be drawn by a mule.—American Inventor.