The upper end is based on human body temperature, not the hottest days. IIRC they were either measuring someone with a slight fever or the thermometer was not quite as accurate as we have now.

And 0 is not remotely the coldest where I'm from, that's a pretty typical temperature in January for us. We routinely see -30C here (-22F) and a few times each winter it will hit -40 (same either scale).

I already tried to freeze whisky, to have some ice cubes which won't dilute the drink while they melt, and it doesn't work. For the boiling point, I don't know, I tried hot pastis once (no more chocolate), and half of the evening left my mind. To have a little pastis taste in hot water, you have to use 1 volume of pastis for 1 volume of water.

Does somebody has already tried to cook spaghettis in vodka? (Beware of alcohol vapors!)

Well, he was in Germany. For temperate regions, it works out quite well. And the body-temperature theory is one of many. The stuff I've read on the matter continually says he measured his own body temperature at 96° on his scale. But, regardless of the origins, it's still a much better scale for environmental temperature than Celsius. First rule of units - if you're going to be arbitrary, at least be relevant.

It's a nice and toasty 82 degrees F here in the city of Angeles.
http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/silly.gif

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for an Australian winter today!

Mmh, I think is time to try convince my boss for a trip to the west coast...

Btw, love the new signature, I noticed you got rid of the Nietzsche one

We had a 40-41oC, here in Athens, last week with a 43oC on last Tuesday; however it didn't succeeed it to keep us away from training.

That's my point - the 0 in Fahrenheit is not relevant, it's completely arbitrary. 0 C is useful, so useful in fact that in the US weather reports they often report "degrees of frost" which is, duh, how many degrees below freezing it is.

I think the Celcius scale is adequately fine for temperature. If you can tell the difference between a 68 degree day and a 69 degree day, hats off to you.

Here in good ol' Blighty it rarely gets above 30°C in the summer (I don't have aircon or any fans in my house) but daytime temps in the winter don't usually go much below zero either. Tales of -60°C (with wind chill) from our North American colleagues fill my mind with horror and Brass Monkey images...

The only place I have been with an overall more temperate climate is Hawaii (but the vicious b*stard mosquitos there seemed to think I was 5* Cordon Bleu dinner).

Of course if the Gulf Stream messes up (as has been predicted by the Doomsayers) then I am royally boned!

I never heard of "degrees of frost" but it's entirely possible. Tomato, tomato, I guess, although I stand by my arguments and revert to GavinP's observation that "100 degrees in the shade" sounds much better than the celsius version.

Mildly radio-active!

Just slightly more than the average persons bombardment from the heavens.

Not like we're 5 headed, 8 tittied, 3 shlonged Chernobyl beasts.... although there is an abundance of the old monobrows.

Aberdeen is known as "the granite city" as well as "the silver city"

Silver is pushing poetic licence a bit..... grey city maybe or even ashen city, but not silver. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif

Damn you shredder!

It's all in what you're used to. When we switched to metric, the temperatures sounded odd to me, too. Now when I visit the states I have to think about it a little bit. Hot to me is anything over 30.

I'm sure there is someone out there who can top this one but I walked to school when it was -46 C, wasen't that bad acctually. Once at school all classes were cancled, When I finally get back my father tells my that "maybe he should have let me stay home". On the other hand the hotest day in my hometown was 32 C (not so bad for a city just south of the arctic circle, http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section2_group1/background).

That gives us a diffrence of 78 degrees between summer and winter

It's close to 80 degrees difference here as well. We'll get down to -45 once in a blue moon and up to 40 every few years but a normal year is more like -40 and +35.

Okay, I was thinking about trying to do a one-year internship (if that's the word) in Canada, but that's not a liveable place visibly. Here less than -5°C is VERY COLD.

Canada is a very large country, the weather varies quite a bit. If you think -5 C is cold, do your internship in Vancouver, where it seldom gets below freezing.

And Wikipedia says that the climat isn't too hot either. But i have first to found this internship, and I'll have to do with what i get.

I live 600 kilometers south of my Swedish colleage http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif, and we get about -30 C and +30 tops during a year.