Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
Still can't figure out why you guys are the last hold outs to go to metric as it is so simple for relating temperature.
100 - water boils
0 water freezes
And -40 C = -40F
Was a balmy -20 C this morning and have only been out for my morning walk and foot commute with the girls... with no wind and a sky full of sun it is actually rather pleasant and the little one was not even complaining about the cold.
The cat even went outside for 5 minutes before he came to his senses... he has never seen snow so was pretty intrigued.
Fahrenheit scale is a little more accurate.
0C +32f the point where fresh water freezes at sea level.
0F is the point where sea water freezes and it is less effected by elevation.
Ever hear the story of how the system came to exist? Supposedly it all dates back to I believe King Henry settling a dispute between a tailor and a cloth maker. The tailor was tall and the cloth maker was short. It was typical that cloth be measured by the tip of the thump on an out streached arm to the tip of the nose. That happens to be half the hight of the person doing the measurment. That length also was what most peoples Sash (Belt) was that was often made by the tailor.
The dispute came when the tailor (tall) felt he was being swindled by the cloth maker (short) because their Yard from the word gird ( circumference of the waist).
They broke it down by finding that the Yard was three lengths of Henry's foot. A foot was 12 "inches" ,the width of Henry's thumb. Also the approximate distance front the first knuckle to the send knuckle on the index finger that the caprenter would use rocking back and forth like and "inch worm" when measuring lengths of wood.
So the whole system was standardized by the girth (waist measurement) of a chubby king Henry.