Re: Hot, Cold, and Temperature

Philippe Caquant scripsit:

> - why should a scalar concept be oriented one way and
> not the other one ? For ex, for a temperature scale,
> why should "cold" be at the lowest end, and "hot" at
> the highest ? If we naturally think so, that means
> that we think that the concepts or "hot / cold" and
> "high / low" are alike, and that if we consider those
> 2 pairs, "hot" is similar to "high" and "cold" similar
> to "low". Why is it so ?
Sheer history.  When Anders Celsius proposed the centigrade scale in 1742,
he set 0 to the boiling point of water and 100 to the freezing point.
It was probably Carolus Linnaeus (the biological taxonomist) who suggested
reversing the scale's direction to agree with the existing Fahrenheit
(32 to 212, 1724) and Reamur (0 to 80, 1731) scales.

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals;
more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more
leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of
the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.  --Samuel Gompers

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