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Three scales of temperature, each of which permits a precise
measurement, are in concurrent use: the Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin
scales. These three different temperature scales were each developed by
different people and have come to be used in different situations.
The scale that is most widely used by the general public in the
United States is the Fahrenheit scale. In 1714, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit,
a German physicist who was living in Holland and operating an
instrument business, developed a mercury-in-glass thermometer and the
temperature scale that still carries his name. His original scale had two
fixed points: 0º was the lowest temperature that he could achieve in a
solution of ice, water, and salt, and 96º was what he believed was the
normal temperature of the human body (though this was later
determined to be 98.6º). Based on this scale, he calculated that the
freezing point (or ice point) of water was 32º; in later studies, it was
determined that the boiling point of water (the steam point) was 212º.
The Fahrenheit scale came to be accepted as the standard measure of
temperature in a number of countries, including Great Britain, and from
there it was spread to British colonies throughout the world. Today,
however, the United States is the only major country in the world that
still uses the Fahrenheit scale.
As the bourgeoisie grew and increasingly began to participate in
the cultivation of the arts, simultaneous changes were taking place. It
became less and less the case that art was created based upon a
commission for a patron and considerably more common for paintings to
be created and then offered as merchandise for sale. At the same time,
it became increasingly necessary for middlemen to assist in enabling
transactions, not between patrons and artists but between artists and
the public at large, in order for the system to function smoothly. These
middlemen were needed to perform functions that had been
unnecessary in a society where art was the domain of only a relatively
few patrons.
However, a system dependent on middlemen functioning
between artists and the public develops obvious weaknesses in that the
middlemen begin to take a role that is broader than merely gathering up
art and making it available to the public. Instead, the middlemen
become the arbiters of taste; the middlemen are the ones who decide
which artists and pieces of art have value because they are the ones
who decide which pieces of art should be shown to exhibitors in the case
of agents, or put on display in the case of exhibitors, or shown to