Talk:Reaumur

Where is it in use? My French encyclopedia doesn't mention its used anywhere. Some web pages (eg http://www.bartleby.com/65/te/temperat.html ) say "some parts of Europe" -- but more precision is required IMO. -- Tarquin

I thought it was long obsolete too. jimfbleak

I have changed this. The Reaumur scale has been obsolete for a century. Anybody who claims it is still in use better present verifiable examples. --Naddy

Watkins

Can anyone point me towards a reference to a WATKINS scale of temperature, please?

Can anybody, tell me why did Réaumur used the 80 degrees as the boiling water temperature? This number has no apparent logic for me. Did he for instance used something else to mark the 100 degree? Send please e-mail to jfrajtag@globo.com

As an explanation, all the other thermometers used 0 and 100 to mark special points. Celsius, the most logic of them all, uses zero for the freezing of water and the 100 the boiling water. Even Fahrenheit didn´t use the crazy number 212(the temperature of boiling water)for nothing. The 100 mark in Fahrenheit´s was the mean temperature of the human body, with the feeble accuracy he had that time. The zero was a temperature of a mixture of ice and salts, making the lowest possible temperature he managed to obtain.