As many of you know, cold and winter are near and dear to my heart. We had, on the weekend, a forecast for snow tonight. And just like in the states, whenever snow is forecast (or any winter weather excitement), they seem to overstate the power of the cold front. Tonight, it is supposed to be a cold rain, no doubt, but no snow is mentioned anywhere and the temperatures have now been forecast to be a good bit warmer than before. The weather today that was to be so cold and rainy is now slower in coming and the föhn that I discussed earlier has apparently been the culprit of our overly warm last couple of days. It is taking more to erode it, but they say as of noon today the beginning of the cold is coming. We shall see, indeed. So still no real snow pictures, I'm afraid. But locals tell me not to worry. I will get those pictures for you before winter is out!
Since temperatures and cold weather are so dear to my heart, I just had to discuss at least one more German inventor that has had a big impact on our country. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born in 1686 in Danzig, which is now Gdansk, Poland. He was a physicist and engineer born into a family of wealth from merchant trading. He was the oldest of 5 siblings with a tragically early rise to manhood. His parents ate poisonous mushrooms by accident and died when he was just 16. Doing the only thing he knew, he worked to become a merchant. His training began in Amsterdam. While training, he started experimenting with the sciences that so interested him. His experiments required many glass instruments, so he took up glass blowing, and by age 31 had settled into doing that full-time. His experimentation with chemistry, barometers, altimeters and thermometers helped him to become very knowledgeable about these subjects such that colleges and other scientists asked him to teach about his experiments.
In 1724, he wrote an article telling how he determined his scale for the thermometers he made. First he made a mixture of water, ice and a salt to get the temperature to as cold has he could get it in a liquid. He set this at 0˚ F for his first reading with a thermometer filled with mercury. Mercury was an easy substance to come by that expanded and contracted at predictable levels with temperature changes. Then he checked to see when ice started to form in a glass of water, or the freezing point, and called this 32˚ F. His final point was set at body temperature when the thermometer was put under the arm or in the mouth. This point was set at 96˚ F. This was used as a point of reference because it was easily measurable and allowed for an easy division of degrees between the two numbers - mark the half way point, then split each of those in half, and so on, to get a very even division of temperature degrees.
On this scale, he noted that water would boil about 180˚F above the freezing point. In time, he was able to get the scale to show exactly a difference of 180˚ F between freezing and boiling, adjusting some of his other points of reference, like the average body temperature, just a touch.
Now for the question of the day yesterday of why Americans use Fahrenheit and not Germans: Around 1744, another scale was emerging that was based more on freezing point and boiling point. In my research on numerous sites, it is not entirely clear on who actually invented this scale. It is said that many claim the original thermometer, known more often as the centigrade scale, but the man they named it after (in 1948, if you can believe it) was Anders Celsius, whose original scale went from 100˚ C to 0˚ C where 100˚ C was freezing and boiling was 0˚ F. This scale was turned around to the format we know today two years after his death. But the reason it persisted was that it was more scientifically based as a scale - measuring these points, that were often used for the science of the day, at one atmosphere, or more commonly known as sea level. This helped to bring a more standard way of looking at scientific data.
It was not until Europe adopted the metric system that the use of Fahrenheit diminished significantly, though. The French devised the new metric system and made it standard in 1795, using the centigrade scale as part of the metric scales. Over the next century due to pressures to have an international standard, many European countries adopted this new system. By 1875, Germany, too, had adopted the metric system, thus abandoning its ties to the Fahrenheit scale. Ironically, the USA signed on to the agreement to make the metric system legal in 1878, but it was not put into use in our country as a mandatory system. Today, only a handful of countries still do not use the metric system, and I believe it is only a matter of time that in order to compete globally, we will also have to use this system and give up our beloved Fahrenheits, gallons and miles. Most of our scientific community has already adopted it exclusively, especially since the unfortunate mishap in Sept. of 1999 with a NASA mission that resulted in the crashing of a Mars probe where the European component used metric and the US component did not.
I hope you found this information interesting, and I apologize for dragging on a bit, but for me, this is truly a passion. Now on to the question of the day for today. I promise it won't be so heavy of a topic! The question for the day today is "What are the national emblems of Germany?"
The words for today are Hot, Warm, Cool and Cold - heiß (hise), warm (vahrm) , kühl (just like we say cool but with your lips in the shape of a trumpet), und (German word for and) kalt (kiahlt - almost like we would say the name Kyle).
Auf wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
