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Just heard on the BBC news: "48.8 degrees in Sicily - that's almost halfway to boiling point".

Boiling point in centigrade is 100 deg so 48.8 is nearly half that but it's a meaningless statement as it all depends on what scale you use. It's like saying if it was 10 deg yesterday and 20 today then it's twice as hot now.

Consider: 50 in centigrade is equal to 122 deg Fahrenheit but boiling point in Fahrenheit is 212 deg, not 244. So not halfway to boiling any more.

It's worse than that, orson. The only sensible scale for temperature is the Kelvin (absolute) scale, so 48.8C is 321.8, and boiling is 373 - so the first isn't not remotely half of the second.

When my students were doing projects on rates of reaction, it was always difficult to persuade them that 40C wasn't twice as hot as 20C.

By their logic, 20C would be infinitely times as hot as 0C.

Paul

Yes I enjoy his bridge columns - very instructive. I have learned a lot re transfers, Jacoby and Negative Doubles.

Watching Celebrity Masterchef. Why does John Torode keep saying "toomeric" rather than "turmeric"?

chrise

Agreed, but at least he gets oregano right.

Ugh. In the Guardian Monday:

Produce new animal and slice it up, say (5)

math pro

Thanks for the 2500th post!

Thanks, grunger. I didn't even notice. Apparently there are plans to start a new "PU" thread.

Mathprofrockstar, your post at 2500 is a good one for the auspicious spot - what a dreadful clue!

I'd be quite happy to have a nice new PU thread - I seldom go back through a thread... and if I do, it's usually just a few pages.