The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #83127   Message #1532448
Posted By: JohnInKansas
01-Aug-05 - 03:53 AM
Thread Name: BS: 117 Degrees!!!?!?!?!....
Subject: RE: BS: 117 Degrees!!!?!?!?!....
(117F - 32F) = 85 "Fahrenheit degrees above freezing point"

1.8 Fahrenheit degrees per Centigrade degree

85/1.8 = 47.22 "Centigrade degrees above freezing point"

117 F = 47.22 C

If memory serves me, that's about 576 R (Rankine) or approximately 285 K (Kelvin), but pedants may want to check the current position of absolute zero.

Recent ISO quibbles have mudied the waters on whether "Celsius" may be used only for "normal temperatures" or may be used for absolute temperatures, but the question seems seldom to arise among weather forcasters. Celsius is generally taken to mean the same as the older Centigrade, and expresses "degrees above/below the freezing point of water. Absolute temperatures, using nominally the same "size of a degree" should be called degrees Kelvin.

Of course, in a few remote Soviet regions, it's been:

117 F (Fahrenheit) = 37.8 R (Rheamur)

but I don't think we have many here using that scale - even in Poland.

John