A hospital: "Doctor, this patient seems to have a high fever. It is registering 40°C. Then again, you can't depend on these thermometers! He might be stone-cold dead, at 15°C."
Your local TV weather report: "Today's highs reached a scorching 104°F! We think. We're not sure. It might have been a cool 59°F. Who knows, it might have been 68°F." Restaurant: "Here's your coffee sir, just the way you like it, piping hot!" "Great . . . <sip> Uh . . . why is it lukewarm?" Carrier Air Conditioner company secret R&D lab: "We have this idea for a gadget the keeps the house at one temperature, so people don't have to keep turning on and off the furnace or the airconditioner. We're calling it a 'thermostat.' The concept is great. The problem is, the temperature sensor bounce around between 15°C and 40°C. One day the house is freezing and then next it is tropical. If only we had a reliable way to measure temperature!" Boiler inspector to apartment super: "She's right on the line, all down the checklist. Good as new. See you in two years." <Drives away> KABOOM!!! Local TV news later that day: "Apparently, a recently inspected boiler began producing 200 times more heat than indicated. Experts are baffled at how this might have happened, but they say their inspection techniques can't distinguish between 80 W and 16 kW so it isn't surprising. So far this week, 50 boilers have exploded and one froze solid." A.P. April 1, 2011. Scientists Oak Ridge National Laboratory turned on what they call a "faucet" to a fill large pool with water. They found, however, that the water flowed at a low rate, roughly 100 ml per minute, this despite the fact that the "faucet" is supposed to produce as much as 1 liter per second. Experts from NASA and Los Alamos have been called in to discuss the situation and try to find solutions. Some suggested the researchers continue turning the faucet clockwise, the same direction they did to start the flow of water. However, they decided to turn it the other way instead. This produced disappointing results; the flow has actually declined to 43 ml/min. Outside expert Horace Heffner says that unfortunately with a "faucet" you are not "able to adjust the flow rate." (Ordinary laboratory-grade thermocouples are as good as medical thermometers, and better than household thermostat sensors. I believe medical thermometers are usually thermistors.) - Jed
