Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 13, 2019

The coffee landing on Mrs Olsen’s lap wasn’t frigorific.

I think Caulfield may have pulled all of that out of his own! Not in the mood to check! :-)

According to the wiki Caulfield is correct. It’s just that the thermometer was placed under the arm or in the mouth. Said person was running a fever, though.

Meanwhile Celsius is set at zero for when ordinary tap water freezes and the Kelvin scale set absolute zero as to when all atomic movement stops. (which would be -273.15 C or -459.67 F for those of you keeping score at home).

Fahrenheit’s scale had some pretty good background. He thought that the ice/ammonium chloride mixture had the lowest temperature possible (which was wrong, as we now know) The reason he chose the human body temperature as second scaling point was – literally – because of his humanistic perception.

In high school chemistry class we were taught that fahrenheit was based on air temperature: D.G.F. picked a really cold day in winter, called it “Extreme cold”, and let that be zero. He then picked a really hot day in winter, called that “Extreme hot”, and let that be 100. Which, to me, made more sense than the ammonium chloride thing, but also goes to show that grade 10 chemistry teachers are certainly capable of pulling things out of their own expletive deleted

Fahrenheit is fine with me for the reason up2trixx said. 0 is bng cold and 100 is bng hot. In Celsius, dropping below 0 is routine, and 100 you never see because we’d all be dead.

And all measuring systems are arbitrary (yes, that includes metric).

That explains it. I knew there was a reason for that totally illogical Fahrenheit system.

That got me laughing out loud. Good one Mr. Mallett.

A bit of trivia. The only point where Celcius and Fahrenheit cross is -40 degrees.

Caulfield certainly knows how to push Mrs. Olsen’s buttons.

From my research 100 degrees was the average hottest day in Europe and 0 degrees was the average coldest day. He scaled it for his environment.

Like many precocious kids, Caulfield rarely acknowledges the most strategic point at which to cease comment. But, then, of course, that is due to his tendency to needle Mrs. Olsen, which makes the effort something for him to enjoy and to add to his classroom legend. He will always be remembered for both intelligence and chutzpah. We teachers remember all of them.

At least it wasn’t a “Show and Tell” part of the class.

Same argument with imperial and metric measurement. Yards and metres…then again, give an inch, take a kilometre.

How old is this strip? I was wearing an Atlanta Flames jersey in the 70’s when I was Caulfield’s age.

Wow, I learned a new word – I thought it was made up

I enjoy the comics for various reasons and I go to the comments because there are usually funny comments, insightful reasonings, heart warming memories, and yes, some awful puns form time to time, but I enjoy those too. Sometimes someone will explain a comic I “do not get”. Other times, I learn something new, which, in my opinion, is a bonus. Today I looked up “frigorific” and learned that a frigorific mixture is a a glass of ice water. Next time I’m dining out, I can order that : )Thank you to Jeff Mallett for helping me store up learning everyday.

Is “metric” meretricious?

This strip always sends me to the dictionary.

Heh, I remember this argument when crazy Uncle Zebechiah was trying to tell me 14 stones was overweight. :-)

As a scientist (retired), I always of course used the metric system, including Celsius; metric has great advantages—just move the decimal point for most scale-ups, etc—for everything but temperature. In daily life, we rarely have need to use temperature in connection with any other measurements, such as weight and volume; so its finer gradations make Fahrenheit sensible to use, and such use doesn’t complicate using metric for all other measuring, such as grams of flour, liters of water, etc.

My understanding is that the upper end was set at 100 based on the highest of several animal temperarure readings (the 100 was a bird of some kind). There is no logic to setting an upper end of “96” that is certainly incorrect.

Frazz13 hrs ·

E.L. Doctorow said that writing is like driving at night in the fog; you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. It’s one of the best things anyone has ever said about writing, or, for that matter, anything.

Who would be so pompous as to try to add to that?

Me. I’m going to say writing is like driving in other ways, too. You can take the Interstate or you can take the two-lanes.

Both of them will get you there, but one of the ways you see a lot more. And then there’s the way I drive, refusing, if I can help it, to take the same route twice, or at least any more than I have to. I’m a wanderer. It should be pretty obvious that I took a major scenic route to get to today’s Frazz. And like most scenic routes, it took a while. But it was worth it.

Not just because I think it’s funny and educational and risqué all at the same time — my own personal trifecta — but because in the process, I learned the word “frigorific” has been out there waiting for me. Is life good when it’s crooked? Damn straight it is.