43 Fun Facts About Fahrenheit

In US forecasts given in Fahrenheit, the heat index combines air temperature with which other reading?

Relative humidity: the index assumes shade and light wind, so standing in full sunshine can raise it by up to 15 F.

At what temperature does water freeze on the Fahrenheit scale?

32 F: water freezes into ice about 9 percent less dense than the liquid, which is why ice floats.

At what temperature does water boil on the Fahrenheit scale at sea level?

212 F: when the scale was later redefined on water's freezing and boiling points, normal body temperature came to be quoted as about 98.6 instead of 96.

Before 1948, what name was widely used for the temperature scale now called Celsius?

Centigrade: a 1948 international conference renamed it, partly because in French 'centigrade' also meant a hundredth of a unit of angle.

What fixed the zero point of Fahrenheit's original scale?

A brine of ice, water and ammonium chloride: he developed the scale after visiting the Danish astronomer Ole Romer in Copenhagen in 1708.

Fahrenheit 451's author insisted it was less about state censorship than about the harm done by what?

Television: in the novel, Captain Beatty explains that censorship began with people abandoning books, not with a government order.

In Fahrenheit 451, what are the 'seashells' that Montag's wife wears?

Tiny in-ear radios: foreshadowing today's earbuds, they wall her off emotionally from her husband.

At the end of Fahrenheit 451, how do the exiled 'book people' keep banned books alive?

By memorising them: Montag has something to offer them because he can recall parts of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

At what temperature do the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales read the same number?

-40: each Celsius degree spans 1.8 Fahrenheit degrees, so the Fahrenheit number drops faster as it gets colder until the two readings meet.

Fahrenheit 451's author typed its first version on rented typewriters in which Los Angeles university's library?

UCLA: when his publisher asked him to double the story into a novel, he went back to the same basement typing room.

Early in Fahrenheit 451, what does Montag come home to find his wife has overdosed on?

Sleeping pills: technicians pump her stomach and replace her blood, yet the next morning she remembers nothing of it.

In Fahrenheit 451, how does Guy Montag kill Captain Beatty?

With a flamethrower: Beatty had taunted Montag and threatened to track down his secret ally, Faber.

Anders Celsius, who proposed his temperature scale in 1742, came from which country?

Sweden: in 1736 he joined the French expedition to Lapland whose measurements showed Earth is flattened at the poles, as Newton predicted.

How was Celsius's 1742 scale unlike today's?

It ran the other way, with water boiling at 0: within a few years others, including the botanist Carl Linnaeus, flipped it to today's form.

Which media giant blocked its own film label from releasing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11?

Disney: the label's bosses, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, bought the film back themselves and found other distributors.

Which British Overseas Territory uses Fahrenheit for everyday temperatures?

The Cayman Islands: it kept Fahrenheit for everyday use even though Britain itself began pushing metric units in the 1960s.

In Fahrenheit 451, what was Montag's secret ally Faber in his former career?

An English professor: he regrets that he did nothing to defend books when he saw them being banned.

Besides Donald Trump, which city's water crisis does Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 examine?

Flint: in 2014 a state-appointed emergency manager switched the city's water to the Flint River, and lead leached from ageing pipes.

In Canada, which kitchen appliance is commonly set in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius?

Ovens: Canada moved its weather reports to Celsius in the 1970s, but Fahrenheit stayed on virtually all its ovens.

Henry Cavendish, who led the Royal Society committee that fixed the Fahrenheit scale's boiling point, discovered which gas?

Hydrogen: he called it 'inflammable air' and showed that burning it with oxygen produces water.

In Fahrenheit 451, who betrays Guy Montag by reporting that he hides books?

His wife, Mildred: she turns him in after he frightens her friends by reading them poetry.

In which city was Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit born in 1686?

Danzig (Gdansk): after his parents died there in 1701, his guardians sent him away to learn bookkeeping and train as a merchant.

How did Fahrenheit's parents die in 1701, leaving him an orphan at 15?

His guardians packed him off to a merchant apprenticeship in Amsterdam; when he ran away, a warrant was issued to press him into the Dutch East India Company.

Fahrenheit is credited with producing the first successful thermometers filled with which liquid?

Mercury: his thermometers beat the alcohol ones of the day, yet many places, including US states, have since banned mercury fever thermometers as toxic.

In which city did Fahrenheit spend his later life, selling barometers and thermometers?

Amsterdam: he had first gone there as a teenage merchant's apprentice, but ran away in 1707.

While developing his temperature scale, what did Fahrenheit find water could do below its freezing point?

Stay liquid: such 'supercooled' droplets in clouds freeze on contact, which is how ice can build up on aircraft wings.

Ole Romer, whose thermometer scale inspired Fahrenheit's, showed in 1676 that light does what?

Travels at a finite speed: timings of eclipses of Jupiter's moons drifted by minutes as Earth's distance from Jupiter changed.

Daniel Fahrenheit died in 1736 in which Dutch city, where he had gone to seek a patent?

The Hague: he died nearly destitute and was given a fourth-class funeral in the city's Kloosterkerk.

Which place holds the official record for Earth's hottest air temperature, 134 F, set in 1913?

Death Valley, California: its narrow basin lies below sea level, and rising hot air is trapped by steep mountain walls and recycled back down.

Average human body temperature, long quoted as 98.6 F, has done what since the 1800s?

Fallen: men born in the 1990s average about 1.06 F cooler than men born in the early 1800s, likely because of less chronic inflammation.

Who wrote the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451?

Ray Bradbury: he said the Nazi book burnings, which terrified him as a boy, helped inspire the novel.

What is the job of Guy Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451?

He grows disillusioned and ends up joining exiles who memorise books to preserve them.

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 likens the date of the attacks to what?

The autoignition temperature of paper: the title borrows from Fahrenheit 451, whose author had been told paper catches fire at 451 F.

Which prize did Fahrenheit 9/11 win at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival?

The Palme d'Or: accepting it, Moore told the jury the win would ensure the American people got to see his film.

Which French director filmed Fahrenheit 451 in 1966 with Oskar Werner and Julie Christie?

Francois Truffaut: it was his only English-language film, even though he barely spoke English himself.

In Fahrenheit 451, what is the robotic hunter that can be programmed to track anyone?

The Mechanical Hound: it follows a person's scent, and late in the novel it is set loose on Montag himself.

In Fahrenheit 451, what does the old woman do when her hidden library is discovered?

Sets herself alight with them: shaken by her suicide, Montag hides a book he took from her house and stays home from work the next day.

Which scale are both Fahrenheit and Celsius formally defined in terms of?

The Kelvin scale: Fahrenheit's original reference points could not be reproduced precisely enough, so his scale had to be redefined.

Which three Pacific island nations, all serviced by the US National Weather Service, use Fahrenheit?

Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands: all three emerged from a US-run UN trust territory and now have free association compacts with the US.

In Fahrenheit 451, how does Montag's 17-year-old neighbour Clarisse die?

Hit by a speeding car: Montag's wife mentions it only in passing, days after it happened.

In Fahrenheit 451, how does Montag finally escape the manhunt through the city?

By floating down a river: Faber had told him to follow it downstream to the railway tracks, where outcasts lived.

How does Fahrenheit 451 end for the city Montag has fled?

It is destroyed by atomic bombs: the war begins and ends almost at once, and the exiles head back to help rebuild.

What honour did Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit receive in 1724?

Fellowship of the Royal Society: that same year he published five brief Latin articles in its journal, describing his discoveries and inventions.