Degree of Fahrenheit: how the thermometer and novel-anti-utopia of Ray Bradbury are related to each other

The old temperature scale is named after the German physicist of the 17th century Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736). The scientist created a thermometer, for which he proposed a system with convenient starting points for measuring. The smallest distance between the devices was called "Fahrenheit" in honor of the inventor. This scale is now used increasingly rarely because of the transition to the International System of Units (SI) in the 1970s. Knowing the rules for translating one unit to another will help to better understand the meaning of the title of Ray Bradbury's novel "451 degrees Fahrenheit" to residents of those countries that use only the metric system.

Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit

German researcher G. Fahrenheit was born in Danzig, studied all his life in experiments on physics, invented instruments used in metrology. In 1710, the scientist began to create a temperature scale and a device for measuring the heating and cooling of bodies. One of the starting points in this work was the observation of the state of the mixture from ice and water, as well as the evaporation of water during boiling.

In the temperature measuring instruments, Fahrenheit used tinted alcohol and mercury. Lack of liquid metal - it freezes at low temperatures. Gabriel Fahrenheit constantly improved his instruments, was elected a member of the Royal Scientific Society in England. At one time it was believed that the thermometers created by the German physicist were irretrievably lost. There were only two copies, but then the third original device invented by the scientist was found.

Temperature measuring device

Various thermometers exist for about 500 years, the honor of creating these important devices is shared among themselves by the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages. In the first samples, the initial points for the scale were unsuccessfully chosen, and thermometers created with the use of divisions of different "prices" were inconvenient in everyday life.

The merit of Gabriel Fahrenheit lies in the fact that he invented a device of modern shape with an accurate scale of measurement. The researcher proposed as a starting point the transition of ice into water, taking into account the point of its boiling. Modern household thermometers in English-speaking countries are not very similar to those invented in the Middle Ages, now most often marks are applied in the interval from 0 to 132 ° F (degrees Fahrenheit).

Temperature scale

The most important parameters of the scale of the device created by Fahrenheit:

• The 0 ° F point is the temperature at which ice is located;
• 32 ° F - melting of ice and reverse transition - into a solid state;
• 212 degrees Fahrenheit - boiling water.

The degree of Fahrenheit began to be denoted by the ° F symbol after the invention of the thermometer. Swedish researcher Anders Celsius more accurately than his German counterpart, set the temperature of the transition of water to different aggregate states. On the scale proposed by the Swedish scientist, there was also a figure of 100, but it corresponded to the melting of ice. For the boiling point of water, Celsius took 0 degrees. More than 250 years have passed since the moment when this scale was turned over: the temperature of the transformation of ice into water was taken as 0 ° C, and the boiling point was designated 100.

The basic temperature scale in the metric system

Since 1960, most countries of the world have made the transition to a metric system, which uses two scales: Celsius and Kelvin. The most common in everyday life, technology and meteorology are thermometers, on which Celsius fissions are applied, taking into account the transformation of the most widespread terrestrial substance - water. In the Kelvin scale used in scientific research, the starting point of temperatures is the state of the body, in which it has the lowest internal energy. The United States and the United Kingdom did not fully transfer to the International System of Units (SI). Thermometers with different scales are used in these and several other English-speaking countries.

Comparison of temperatures

In the temperature range of Fahrenheit, there is an interval from 0 ° to 100 °. The same range on the Celsius scale corresponds to a gap of -18 ° to 38 °. The Kelvin scale uses the term "absolute zero". This is the temperature, which is -273.2 ° C or -459.7 ° F. You can translate and 451 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 233 ° C.

Different temperatures can be converted into each other, but these calculations are needed in the United States and Great Britain, where they refused to use the Fahrenheit scale in the framework of the standardization process in many fields of scientific activity and production, but it still remains common in everyday life. If necessary, residents of English-speaking countries transfer fahrenheit to degrees Celsius, knowing that the temperature interval of 1 ° C is 1.8 ° F.

Ray Bradbury "451 degrees Fahrenheit"

Until 1960, the Fahrenheit scale was the main in English-speaking countries, it was used in climatology, medicine, industry and everyday life. His novel Ray Bradbury finished in 1953, and in the epigraph indicated that 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature of the ignition of the paper. The protagonist of the work lives in the distant future and works as a "fireman", but does not fight with fire, but burns books.

The American classic of the fantastic genre devoted his novel anti-utopia to the problems of moral choice, the fight against totalitarian systems, the embodiment of which in the twentieth century was fascism. After coming to power in Germany, Adolf Hitler initiated the destruction of libraries, the burning of books. In this way, the Führer wanted to eradicate any manifestations of dissent, to impose Nazi ideology on fellow citizens. The old temperature scale and physical magnitude - the degree of Fahrenheit - are gradually disappearing into the past, but the ideas raised in the novel remain relevant.