F for Fail

This morning the temperature here in Chicago was 1 degree. Not two degrees or zero degrees but one degree. Singular. It sounds odd to say it, so it got stuck in my head and I started to think about exactly what is a degree in this case. As I did so, I came to get rather angry.
One degree is one degree Fahrenheit, which is of course the scale we use in the US. This, along with our steadfast refusal to adopt the metric system, has always bugged me.* So today I decided to look it up and see just what a Fahrenheit degree is so I'd know why we as a country have been so stubborn. What I learned was ridiculous enough to make a blog post.
Go to wikipedia and look up Fahrenheit now. The system that we use in opposition to a worldwide standard (that is beautifully logical) is not only totally arbitrary but also the product of some science that is so sloppy I could have done it.
Apparently Mr Fahrenheit used two measurements to scale his system. The first is stupid but at least seems in some slightly way purposeful: he put a thermometer in a brine mixture to find his zero point. Why not use water? Good question. That would make too much sense and thus it would be Celcius like all the rest of the world uses. Better to complicate things by using a mixture the includes ammonium chloride, which wikipedia classifies "a salt." Not "salt," as in NaCl, but something else that is more complicated. The other point he used was not the boiling point (again, too sensible) but the level of the thermometer "when held in the mouth or under the armpit of his wife." The best part is that he intended this point (his wife's body temperature) to be the 100 point on his scale, only he was apparent a crack scientist and so the body temperature we all know today is 98.6. That's 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the scale not only created with two arbitrary points, but one of them ended up being wrong. He messed up his own scale, which was his invention. I'm having a hard time even coming up with an analogy for that.
There is more good stuff on the wikipedia page about how he went through some mathematical gymnastics adjusting his stupid scale so it would make sense. Honestly, it reads like a description of how little kids might get together and decide on how to split up their allotment of toys, with everyone having a different great idea.



*Almost all of the rest of the world uses the metric system, but we do not. Think about it in this way: we as Americans like to chastise other countries for backward thinking regarding religion, either by adhering to ridiculously fundamental laws or by operating fully as a church state. This is rightfully considered backward and improper. Well, as a lesser of two evils, it's far better to be backward when it comes to religion than when it comes to science.