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Fahrenheit based his original scale on the lowest temperature he could achieve with a mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride. This he defined as zero. He then set the freezing point of water at 32 and human body temperature taken orally at 96. Why these particular values? I have no idea. "But," you say, "body temperature is 98.6, not 96." That's right. It was later decided that it would be convenient if the boiling point of water were some even number of degrees higher than the freezing point. Since under the original scale it was about 180 degrees above the freezing point, it was defined as exactly 180 degrees above the freezing point, and the new definition became based on water freezing at 32 degrees and boiling at 212 degrees.

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