4 ms·

I have always felt that 37C was way too precise an answer for a human's body temperature. How is it that a measurement based on the freezing and boiling point f

I have always felt that 37C was way too precise an answer for a human's body temperature. How is it that a measurement based on the freezing and boiling point for water coincidentally lands on a nice even number for a human's body temperature. It's one of my issues with biological sciences that they sometimes try to come up with precise answers as they do in physics or chemistry, when most of the time answers, such as this, should be phrased as "around 37C" instead of "it's 37C".

travisjungroth 4y ago
Even “around” is meaningless without context. A hot day is around 37c (+/- 10), a healthy person is around 37c (+/- 1) and a manufacturing process could call for a temp around 37c (+/- 0.1).
- kolinko 4y ago
  The accuracy is implied in the nimber of dogots usually. So 37 is +-1C, 40 is +-10, and 36.6 is +-0.1
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    Doesn’t work great when you want high precision on a number that ends with zeros or have a range that’s not a multiple of ten. The real answer is standard deviation or something like that.
    - TylerE 4y ago
      Sure it does. 10000 and 10000.000 have vastly different precision.
      - travisjungroth 4y ago
        10,000 doesn’t disambiguate between an error of 1, 10, 100 or 1000.
        OJFord 4y ago
        1e4 does though (vs. 1.0e4, 1.00e4, etc.).
    - jaggederest 4y ago
      Scientific notation is the answer to this problem. 3.00 * 10^3 versus 3 * 10^3
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    The accuracy being implied in the “nimber” might not be intentional but it’s a great demonstration of the principle.
  - techno_tsar 4y ago
    I was googling 'nimber' and 'dogot' because I thought it was some obscure but extremely relevant concept that I didn't know about.
    - romwell 4y ago
      The obscure, but extremely relevant concept is the English QWERTY keyboard layout, which places U, I, and O next to each other and makes typos like this more likely when you touch-type with two hands :)
  - romwell 4y ago
    >The accuracy is implied in the number of digits usually. >So 37 is +-1C Yeah, but this doesn't work for human bodies when you round 36.5 either up to 37 or down to 36. * 38C is surely fever, 37 is mild fever for most people; * 36C is below-normal for most people, and 35C is surely hypothermia. 36.5 - 37C is the normal temperature range.
  - antiatheist 4y ago
    Would 45C be ±1 or ±10? You can't provide a scaled ranges with the digits alone like that. Just use ± or a hyphenated range, and take it in context with adjacent measurements.
    - BenjiWiebe 4y ago
      +/- 5
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > A hot day is around 37c (+/- 10) Absolutely not. 47C is an emergency, not "hot".
  - halper 4y ago
    Ah, memories of quiet summer days in Western Australia! No emergencies as far as the eye can see. The wind feels like a hair dryer in the face. Ah yes, a summer day in the sticks.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      You know, there might be a reason the population density in Western Australia is reportedly 1 person per square kilometer. Or as Population Australia put it: > The state’s capital city is Perth. Perth has an estimated population of over 2.7 million people. > Western Australia is Australia’s largest state. Its total area is 2,529,875 km² which accounts for 33 percent of Australia’s total land mass. > Based on our research Western Australia population will reach 2.879 million by the end of June of 2023. Most of Western Australia, of course, is not Perth. The density outside of Perth is... 0.2 people per square kilometer, using poorly-defined and chronologically mismatched statistics from the wikipedia sidebars. Perth has 80%+ of the people of Western Australia in 0.24% of the space. If we believe Population Australia about the size of Perth, it has more than 97% of the population of Western Australia in 0.3% of the space. I feel strangely comfortable characterizing temperatures that prevent humans from living in a region as "emergency" temperatures.
      - bogantech 4y ago
        The population density of Sydney is 2037 people per square KM according to Wikipedia, it's not uncommon to get days with a temperature of 35-40 degrees and we aren't dropping like flies either. I quite like a nice warm day. Humans live in warmer climates than that and have done since before the invention of air conditioning. You might feel uncomfortable if you're not used to it but you're not going to die if you stay hydrated
  - BenjiWiebe 4y ago

travisjungroth 4y ago

Even “around” is meaningless without context. A hot day is around 37c (+/- 10), a healthy person is around 37c (+/- 1) and a manufacturing process could call for a temp around 37c (+/- 0.1).

kolinko 4y ago
The accuracy is implied in the nimber of dogots usually. So 37 is +-1C, 40 is +-10, and 36.6 is +-0.1
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  Doesn’t work great when you want high precision on a number that ends with zeros or have a range that’s not a multiple of ten. The real answer is standard deviation or something like that.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    Sure it does. 10000 and 10000.000 have vastly different precision.
    - travisjungroth 4y ago
      10,000 doesn’t disambiguate between an error of 1, 10, 100 or 1000.
      - OJFord 4y ago
        1e4 does though (vs. 1.0e4, 1.00e4, etc.).
  - jaggederest 4y ago
    Scientific notation is the answer to this problem. 3.00 * 10^3 versus 3 * 10^3
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  The accuracy being implied in the “nimber” might not be intentional but it’s a great demonstration of the principle.
- techno_tsar 4y ago
  I was googling 'nimber' and 'dogot' because I thought it was some obscure but extremely relevant concept that I didn't know about.
  - romwell 4y ago
    The obscure, but extremely relevant concept is the English QWERTY keyboard layout, which places U, I, and O next to each other and makes typos like this more likely when you touch-type with two hands :)
- romwell 4y ago
  >The accuracy is implied in the number of digits usually. >So 37 is +-1C Yeah, but this doesn't work for human bodies when you round 36.5 either up to 37 or down to 36. * 38C is surely fever, 37 is mild fever for most people; * 36C is below-normal for most people, and 35C is surely hypothermia. 36.5 - 37C is the normal temperature range.
- antiatheist 4y ago
  Would 45C be ±1 or ±10? You can't provide a scaled ranges with the digits alone like that. Just use ± or a hyphenated range, and take it in context with adjacent measurements.
  - BenjiWiebe 4y ago
    +/- 5
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> A hot day is around 37c (+/- 10) Absolutely not. 47C is an emergency, not "hot".
- halper 4y ago
  Ah, memories of quiet summer days in Western Australia! No emergencies as far as the eye can see. The wind feels like a hair dryer in the face. Ah yes, a summer day in the sticks.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    You know, there might be a reason the population density in Western Australia is reportedly 1 person per square kilometer. Or as Population Australia put it: > The state’s capital city is Perth. Perth has an estimated population of over 2.7 million people. > Western Australia is Australia’s largest state. Its total area is 2,529,875 km² which accounts for 33 percent of Australia’s total land mass. > Based on our research Western Australia population will reach 2.879 million by the end of June of 2023. Most of Western Australia, of course, is not Perth. The density outside of Perth is... 0.2 people per square kilometer, using poorly-defined and chronologically mismatched statistics from the wikipedia sidebars. Perth has 80%+ of the people of Western Australia in 0.24% of the space. If we believe Population Australia about the size of Perth, it has more than 97% of the population of Western Australia in 0.3% of the space. I feel strangely comfortable characterizing temperatures that prevent humans from living in a region as "emergency" temperatures.
    - bogantech 4y ago
      The population density of Sydney is 2037 people per square KM according to Wikipedia, it's not uncommon to get days with a temperature of 35-40 degrees and we aren't dropping like flies either. I quite like a nice warm day. Humans live in warmer climates than that and have done since before the invention of air conditioning. You might feel uncomfortable if you're not used to it but you're not going to die if you stay hydrated
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago