Since early morning I have been thinking of Anders Celsius, an Eighteenth Century Swedish astronomer, who came up with the scale that links temperature with the allotropic states of water: zero for freezing and hundred for boiling. How very astute, it keeps pulsating through my mind, given that water is so essential for life on our planet. But, try as I might, I have not been able to squeeze out a single thought beyond this trivial observation, which can be found in every schoolbook. It is late evening already, and the best I can come up with is that tomorrow is another day. Celsius might yet get a more fitting praise.

Addendum (September 13, 2007)

Only a day later, a couple of things come to mind. The range conducive to life as we know it is pretty narrow by cosmic standards. A hundred degrees is just a convenient way of dividing that narrow range. In addition, three centuries ago it was rather inconceivable that the planet’s temperature would ever wander out of the range. Or off the liquid water scale. By comparison, we can imagine it very well in view of climate change, which is raging around us already. Which is perhaps why I got so preoccupied with Celsius’ quaint invention. And that was only yesterday, less than a moment by cosmic standards.