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Some believe that Fahrenheit was a Freemason, and because there are 32 degrees of enlightenment, he chose to use 32 as the melting temperature of water. Degrees are also used as levels with the Freemasons, hence the use of the word on the scale. However, there is no documented evidence that Fahrenheit was a Freemason.
-the same year he assigned the number 32 a special place in DEGREES of temperature.
He visited England in 1724 and became a member of the Royal Society.
Yes. It is quite likely that the concept of 32 was devised shortly after the concept of 31 by the first person who ever counted that high. That is, indeed, many millennia before this Rite he speaks of. Still doesn't make it particularly significant.
Originally posted by Cabaret Voltaire
reply to post by AugustusMasonicus
Ah, but the concept of 32 was in existence long before this Rite you speak of.
Originally posted by Cabaret Voltaire
Ah, but the concept of 32 was in existence long before this Rite you speak of.
Originally posted by Moonsouljah
It occurred to me that ice melts at 32 degrees Fahrenheit- could it be masonic?
That Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was from 18th century Germany tells me he was likely not even exposed to Freemasonry.
Stephen Morin devised a 25 degree system in the 1760s. In 1761 the French Grand Lodge at Paris granted him a patent as a Grand Inspector, "authorizing and empowering him to establish perfect and sublime Masonry in all parts of the world."
Originally posted by Cabaret Voltaire
What could be the origin of the 32, Grand Interwebule Inspectigator???
Originally posted by network dude
No mason shall consume more than 5 beers at any one time, hence 5 X 32 = 160.
Originally posted by tovenar
No, the connection is not that Fahrenheit was a freemason, but rather properties of the number 32 itself---what some people would call sacred geometry or sacred mathematics.
Fahrenheit marked a glass mercury-filled tube at zero with the coldest temperature he could produce--ice being stirred through salt (like making homemade ice cream).
The highpoint on his scale was the temperature of human blood (measured by putting the thermometer in someone's armpit). He set THAT temp as 96 degrees. He did this so that other scientists could make their own thermometers without having to come to the Netherlands and physically copy his laboratory--they could make their own thermometer and use his scale, by calibrating their thermometer to "universal" temperatures they could create in their own labs.
The reason for 96 at the "top" is that 96 can be subdivided 12 times, and still have subdivisions within each sub-unit. In a world of handmade measuring instruments, this was critical.
The freezing point of water is two twelfths of the way of the glass. He marked that point as 32 because 32 is 2^5 ; which means that 32 can be divided in half five times.
The point of all this is that you could, living on another continent, with nothing more than his book, recreate every experiment farhenheit did, and set up your own weather laboratory, with hand-made tools, a glass tube, a metal file, and a bottle of mercury.