Celsius was designed for water. A human scale would be like 100 = maximum temperature human is expected to be alive and 0 = minimum temperature human is expected to be alive (and 50 normal human temperature, so the scale isn’t even linear).
And your scale makes even less sense because you are ignoring time and air moisture (for the maximum temperature). You would probably die very quickly in a 120°C hot sauna if it had 100% moisture.
Same with the cold: I’d not survive much longer than a minute in -50°C without clothes but with adequate protection several hours seems possible.
minimum and maximum body temperature (we are measuring humans, not the environment).
I thought mentioning 50 as “normal human temperature” it was clear I was talking about body temperature
But the lowest body temp ever survived was 56.7F. making a scale out of that would be difficult because the distance from normal body temp to death is a lot closer on the upper range.
Fahrenheit is more of a scale of how the temperature feels to a human.
Fahrenheit decided to define the lowest possible temperature as 0° to avoid negative temperature, and the normal body temperatur of humans as 12°. Yes, he lived pre-metric times. Of course he soon realized that these big jumps of the 12° scale were pretty unusable, so he redefined an 1/8^th° of his first draft as the steps of his final scale. I don’t know whether he lived to realize that the coldest temperature he could achieve in his lab was not the coldest temperature possible. Oh, and he got the body temperature slightly wrong. Still pretty impressive achivement for 1708.
Somehow I’m a bit sad he didn’t keep the 12° scale. Just imagine Americans would have to take fever like: “the patient has 12⅞ °F”.
Maximum body temperature should be pretty obvious - at least with one or two degrees (Celsius) of wiggle room.
Though, with minimum body temperature, do you mean minimum while conscious or minimum survivable? Because there have been cases where people were successfully resuscitated after being submerged in freezing water for a very long time:
An 8-year-old boy fell through pond ice and was submerged for ≥147 minutes. Nadir peripheral body temperature was 7 °C (45 °F). After rewarming with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, prolonged hospitalization, and neurorehabilitation, the child recovered.
At 6-month follow-up, he was giving short commands, standing without support, riding a tricycle, eating soft foods, and relearning simple tasks.
Humans in different areas are used to and can survive different temperatures. There’s this buddhist guy who goes out in the snow naked and meditates to produce body heat.
But all humans are made of water, and can relate its chemical processes to their comfort and survival.
I should have specified minimum and maximum body temperature. Doesn’t matter where you are from, if your body temperature is like 15ºC or 45ºC you will hardly survive, and majority will die way before that.
Celsius was designed for water. A human scale would be like 100 = maximum temperature human is expected to be alive and 0 = minimum temperature human is expected to be alive (and 50 normal human temperature, so the scale isn’t even linear).
Humans are mostly water though.
And your scale makes even less sense because you are ignoring time and air moisture (for the maximum temperature). You would probably die very quickly in a 120°C hot sauna if it had 100% moisture.
Same with the cold: I’d not survive much longer than a minute in -50°C without clothes but with adequate protection several hours seems possible.
minimum and maximum body temperature (we are measuring humans, not the environment). I thought mentioning 50 as “normal human temperature” it was clear I was talking about body temperature
But the lowest body temp ever survived was 56.7F. making a scale out of that would be difficult because the distance from normal body temp to death is a lot closer on the upper range.
Fahrenheit is more of a scale of how the temperature feels to a human.
Fahrenheit decided to define the lowest possible temperature as 0° to avoid negative temperature, and the normal body temperatur of humans as 12°. Yes, he lived pre-metric times. Of course he soon realized that these big jumps of the 12° scale were pretty unusable, so he redefined an 1/8^th° of his first draft as the steps of his final scale. I don’t know whether he lived to realize that the coldest temperature he could achieve in his lab was not the coldest temperature possible. Oh, and he got the body temperature slightly wrong. Still pretty impressive achivement for 1708.
Somehow I’m a bit sad he didn’t keep the 12° scale. Just imagine Americans would have to take fever like: “the patient has 12⅞ °F”.
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Ah, that makes a bit more sense.
Maximum body temperature should be pretty obvious - at least with one or two degrees (Celsius) of wiggle room.
Though, with minimum body temperature, do you mean minimum while conscious or minimum survivable? Because there have been cases where people were successfully resuscitated after being submerged in freezing water for a very long time:
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jaccas.2025.104885
Humans in different areas are used to and can survive different temperatures. There’s this buddhist guy who goes out in the snow naked and meditates to produce body heat.
But all humans are made of water, and can relate its chemical processes to their comfort and survival.
I should have specified minimum and maximum body temperature. Doesn’t matter where you are from, if your body temperature is like 15ºC or 45ºC you will hardly survive, and majority will die way before that.
So 0H is like 35C and 100H is 40C? That kinda sucks.