Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit

The Fahrenheit scale is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by Dutch–German–Polish physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his scale exist. The lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the temperature of a solution of brine made from equal parts of ice, water and salt (ammonium chloride). Further limits were established as the melting point of ice (32 °F) and his best estimate of the average human body temperature (96 °F, about 2.6 °F less than the modern value due to a later redefinition of the scale). The scale is now usually defined by two fixed points: the temperature at which water freezes into ice is defined as 32 °F, and the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 °F, a 180 °F separation, as defined at sea level and standard atmospheric pressure. At the end of the 2010s, Fahrenheit was used as the official temperature scale only in the United States (including its unincorporated territories), its freely associated states in the Western Pacific (Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands), the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Liberia. Antigua and Barbuda and other islands which use the same meteorological service, such as Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as Bermuda, Belize and the Turks and Caicos Islands, use Fahrenheit and Celsius. All other countries in the world officially now use the Celsius scale, named after Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius.

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