Degree Fahrenheit (°F)

US customaryCurrent unit

The temperature scale used in the United States and a few other countries: water freezes at 32 °F and boils at 212 °F. Proposed by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724.

0 degrees Fahrenheit = 255.3722222 kelvins (approximately).

About the degree Fahrenheit

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who lived from 1686 to 1736, proposed his scale in 1724. His zero came from a freezing mixture of ice, water and ammonium chloride (or sea salt), which holds a stable temperature, and his upper reference of about 96 was his estimate of human body temperature. His own letters say he built on Ole Rømer's scale. Accounts of how he picked zero differ, and a popular German story that it was the coldest winter day in his home city of Danzig has failed verification.

Around 1776 to 1777 a Royal Society committee led by Henry Cavendish fixed water's freezing point at 32 degrees and its boiling point at 212, exactly 180 degrees apart, which moved body temperature to about 98.6. Today the scale is defined through the kelvin; NIST puts absolute zero at minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. It remains in everyday use in the United States and its territories, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the Cayman Islands. A comfortable room is around 70 degrees, which is about 21 degrees Celsius.

Sources: Wikipedia: Fahrenheit; NIST: the kelvin and the SI redefinition; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Degree Fahrenheit conversion chart

100 degrees Fahrenheit expressed in every other temperature unit:

Unit	100 degrees Fahrenheit
Kelvin	310.9277778
Celsius	37.77777778
Rankine	559.67
Réaumur	30.22222222
Delisle	93.33333333
Newton	12.46666667
Rømer	27.33333333

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