Bricks said:
Fred61 said:
Frozen Canuck said:
OK here is mine. Heating since September this season. Not that much -40 this year (so far) plenty of winter left though, so staying prepared for the inevitable -40. Will probably need to heat till the end of May (normal). So let's hear from those who have it worse. Say someone from the North Pole. Seriously those of you who live in a climate where you can stay warm in a tent, with a candle & complain about winter.....well you make me wonder.
How did they measure temperature before the thermometer was invented?
cool
Chilly
Cold
Really cold
D-mm cold
Sh-t it`s cold
SOB it`s cold
So cold the fire went out.
The End....Ice Age
Well I asked a friend the same question and he presented me with this little tidbit of information that I didn't know:
It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But to prevent them from rolling around about the deck was a major problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.
Answer
The solution was a metal plate with 16 round dimples, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls quickly rusted to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make the plates of brass - hence Brass Monkeys. Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts more rapidly than iron when chilled.
Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally,cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. All this time you thought it was just a vulgar
expression.
Now that we have thermometers we should run an experiment to see just what that temperature was.