Sirs:
I rise to complain how the Intellectual
Elite, which make up your readers, are
shielded from the centigrade scale, and
are mede to follow the intricacies of nu-
clear fission in Fahrenheit.
Let us recall that Fahrenheit based
his zero on the "coldest obtainable tem-
perature," a mixture of ice, sal ammonia
and water (a real joke); his 100 on the
vary variable temperature of the human
body (he was 1.4 degrees out).
My sympathy is with the Danzig firm
who returned a shipment of British ovens
duly equipped with Fahrenheit ther-
mometers with those words; "Although
Fahrenheit was a native of Danzig, we
here have not used his thermometer
these hundred years."
How long, O Lord, how long?
CRICHTON MacGAFFEY, M.D.
St. Clare's Hospital
Schenectady, N. Y.
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Evidently more than fifty years for the muggles.
Letter printed in the Scientific American January 1954
bc discovered above while decluttering >1 M^3 of Scientific Americans.