It is not my intent to start an argument about metric versus English, etc.
But the idea (quoted recently to this list by Rick Strickert) that
Fahrenheit used 32 for freezing and 96 for body temperature so he could
divide the scale into 64 divisions is one I have heard before, and it makes
sense to me.
Today we have good methods for dividing scales accurately into any number of
equal divisions. That hasn't always been the case. If you have to
subdivide a scale by eyeball, it is definitely much easier to successively
divide divisions into equal halves than to divide into any other number,
including 10. Fahrenheit could have chosen to rule his scale to 10 or 100
divisions between freezing and body temperature, but it would have been more
difficult to accomplish. Additionally, 10 divisions would have been
perceived as too few, and 100 probably as too many... except I would guess
he never got that far with his thinking. The obvious thing to do (if you
don't have a factor-of-10 bias) is to keep dividing the divisions into equal
halves until the fineness of the scale suits you. If this is indeed what
Fahrenheit did, I would say he used sound judgment... he used a
scale-division method that he knew could be accomplished reasonably
accurately with the technology available.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817