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by pyre 4533 days ago
How did it manage to be off by 32 (!) for freezing, but fairly close for body temperature? I would expect a constant (or at least same ballpark) error.

I imagine it had something to do with the medium used for the thermometer?

1 comments

He was trying to find a salt mixture that went through a phase change at 0 degrees:

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/z...

That wasn't so reliable, and neither was using 100 for human body temperature, so when he discovered that water boiled at 212 he began calibrating with that.