The third point, and the fly in the ointment, was normal human body temperature, measured by putting a thermometer in the mouth or armpit. Of course, a third point is unnecessary to begin with, and picking one that would naturally fluctuate slightly was a bad idea.

The average body temperature was considered to be 96 degrees Fahrenheit back then, which was supposedly the temperature of Daniel Fahrenheit's wife's armpit. It became 98.6 degrees later, after the degree was slightly redefined to make water's boiling point exactly 180 degrees higher than its freezing point (which meant that 0 degrees was no longer the freezing point of brine).

That's a heck of a complicated way to define a temperature scale, isn't it? Fortunately, Anders Celsius did a better job by pegging 0 degrees and 100 degrees to the freezing and boiling points of water. Unfortunately, he mixed them up.

That's right, the original Celsius scale was inverted, with 0 being hot and 100 being cold. But at least Anders Celsius picked two good reference points. Furthermore, he was careful to note that since the boiling point of water varied with atmospheric pressure, 0 degrees would denote the boiling point of water at the average barometric pressure at the average sea level, also known as one standard atmosphere.

After his death, the 0 and 100 points were promptly reversed, making higher degrees correspond to hotter temperatures. And eventually, the reference points were changed.

-273.15 degrees Celsius was one reference point. It was defined as absolute zero, the magical temperature that theoretically occurs in the complete absence of heat. It represents a state of zero entropy, and the coldest possible temperature.

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