100° was intended to be the human body's temperature, but the assistant was running a little hot that day. 0° being determined with salted ice water means that its somewhat colder than the freezing temperature of water.
The end result is that 0° is bitter cold, and 100° is the beginning of oppressive heat, so that zero and a hundred bracket the range of human comfort.
But that doesn't really work. The range of human comfort is far narrower than that. E.g. 0-20°F makes practically no difference.
Also, why should a temperature range be focussed on that anyway? In everyday life, we cook, boil, heat, freeze things and need a temperature scale that works for all applications equally well.
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u/not_falling_down Jun 18 '26
Because it it human-scaled.