Fever is not 100F. A fever is defined as 100.4F. Why 100.4 when 100 is a much easier to remember and handle number? Because fever is defined in humans as 38C, and that converts to 100.4F.
It's been a while but I think they tried to establish 100F as the average human body temperature. But after they established that baseline turns out they were off by 1.4 degrees and couldn't change it.
People's body temperature used to be higher a century ago, but I think it was less then 1°C.
EDIT: Apparently since the early 1800s, men's body temperature changed about 0.59°C and women's about 0.32°C.
That's really interesting. Does anyone know why?
I believe there's a theory that the average person had at least one source of inflammation in their body.
Hasn't the fever temperature changed recently or something
That's a sigfig error. A fever is 38C, which is 2 significant digits. Converting to 100° F goes up an order of magnitude so you get a free sigfig, but unless the original number was 38.0C, you don't get that 0.4, you're implying precision that the original measurement never gave you.
Fever is not 100F. A fever is defined as 100.4F. Why 100.4 when 100 is a much easier to remember and handle number? Because fever is defined in humans as 38C, and that converts to 100.4F.
It's been a while but I think they tried to establish 100F as the average human body temperature. But after they established that baseline turns out they were off by 1.4 degrees and couldn't change it.
People's body temperature used to be higher a century ago, but I think it was less then 1°C.
EDIT: Apparently since the early 1800s, men's body temperature changed about 0.59°C and women's about 0.32°C.
That's really interesting. Does anyone know why?
I believe there's a theory that the average person had at least one source of inflammation in their body.
Hasn't the fever temperature changed recently or something
That's a sigfig error. A fever is 38C, which is 2 significant digits. Converting to 100° F goes up an order of magnitude so you get a free sigfig, but unless the original number was 38.0C, you don't get that 0.4, you're implying precision that the original measurement never gave you.
Who defines it like that? I'm asking because I wouldn't be surprised if the definition differs between orgs
It's actually an irrational number, but for most purposes 100.4159F is a perfectly reasonable approximation.
No I was wondering who defines it as 37C/100.4F
IUPAC
°F and °C, unless you're speaking of Coulomb and Farad.