I thought 38° was pretty warm until I realised it's 3.3°C lol.

 

Fahrenheit is a system with no basis in reality. I mean - come on!

Mr. Fahrenheit poured some Mercury into a glass tube onto which he cut some scores and put numbers on this tube. He then put the end of the Mercury-filled tube into a container of water and put the tub over a fire. When the water was boiling - he looked at the tube and noted the water that was boiling had caused the Mercury to climb-up inside the tube. It was at the score he'd marked as being 212° and stayed there. He removed his tub of water to let it cool.

The next day, he somehow managed to cool the water until it froze solid. And he looked to see what score his tube of Mercury was at. The Mercury was at the line marked 32° and he noted that water boiled at 212° and froze over solid at 32° - and he named his temperature "Fahrenheit." Mr. Fahrenheit was in the UK at the time of his stupendous breakthrough in the world of 'Science.'

Meanwhile across the English Channel a gentleman named Celsius had a similar idea. And he took his tube of likewise sealed-up Mercury. And over the fire it went. Doing the same thing as Mr. Fahrenheit - but with One BIG Difference. Can you guess what this 'difference' was? Well, I'll tell you:

He'd scored his tube - but he hadn't numbered his scores. He waited. So when his tub of water was merrily boiling away, he drew a number. It was 100.° So now he managed to get his tub of water to chill down. And when his water, too, had frozen solid - he drew the figure for 0° So Mr. Celsius had water that froze-up solid at 0° and boiled at 100.° and he named his temperature 'Celsius.' And as it was based on a scale of 100, this was scientifically called centi- (based on 100) -grade - centigrade.

So in the UK, water boiled at 212°F or Fahrenheit. And a few miles across the Channel, it boiled at 100°C.

Needless to say (I hope), in the field of science, we use the 'based-on-100' centigrade system in our work. A chemist, for instance, would likely blow themselves into the ionosphere if they tried to accomplish a chemical-synthesis by teaspoons and a pinch of this & that. Shall we play with grams and ounces tomorrow?

Dave - an organic-chemist

 

Water boils at 100°C in the UK now since our water went metric. Of course, no one has changed the roads signs to kilometres but you have to buy petrol in litres.

The weather on the telly or online will inform me of the temperature in Celsius, the rainfall in millilitres but the wind speed in mph.

So, no confusion there then.

You just wouldn't get this measurement unit ambivalence in astronomy!