I still have my nice mercury thermometer. I took it along when going to a medical facility in order to compare against their digital thermometer, and they agreed to the 0.1 F digit. Due to toxicity and environmental concerns about mercury, liquid metal thermometers sold today contain the eutectic alloy gallinstan, 68.5% gallium, 21.5% indium, 10% tin by weight, with a melting point of -19 C. Since gallinstan wets glass, the inner surface is coated with gallium oxide. The use of a thin inner glass tube, with low heat capacity, surrounded by a flat outer protective glass tube allows for quick equilibrium and easily read temperature. While metallic mercury is a fairly benign poison, the organometallic dimethylmercury is extremely nasty. Lack of awareness that it can penetrate latex gloves has led to a very tragic, slow death, well documented on the internet. -- Gene On Saturday, November 18, 2017, 9:52:29 AM PST, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote: It seems that 98.6 is an overestimate for average human body temp. In 1992 they got a figure of 98.2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1302471 —Dan ----- From: Andy Latto <andy.latto@pobox.com> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Leo Broukhis <leobro@gmail.com> wrote:
This was converted from 37.0 Celsius.
Do you have a source for the value being given to three significant figures in Celsius? I looked online, and found "Normal body temperature is considered to be 37°C (98.6°F); however, a wide variation is seen. Among normal individuals, mean daily temperature can differ by 0.5°C (0.9°F), and daily variations can be as much as 0.25 to 0.5°C" on the NIH site at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK331/, quoted from "Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations. 3rd edition.". If it varies among individuals by .5 decrees C, and daily variations can be as much as .5 degrees C, 37 seems a better description than 37.0 ----