“Some unit conversions are gen’rable
From temperature-title most ven’rable,
But data retention
In SI dimensions—
Kelvin 506— seems far less mem’rable.”
The next poem was posted on 24 April 2023 in honor of Right to Read Day, specifically. It kicked off a week wherein I aimed to highlight chemistry-adjacent themes from famous authors, in terms of their books or quotes about writing or reading. This first limerick noted Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in the context of a temperature conversion.
“Some unit conversions are gen’rable /
From temperature-title most ven’rable…”
Dimensional analysis is a common skill developed in General Chemistry coursework. It is often useful to quickly convert from one unit to another: for instance, to be able to express a volume in cubic meters or in liters, or to express a velocity in miles per hour or meters per second. These steps are called unit conversions.
Bradbury’s book is celebrated as a classic and was a focal point of 2023’s Right to Read Week. The “temperature-title” is venerable.
“But data retention
In SI dimensions—
Kelvin 506— seems far less mem’rable.”
The title of Fahrenheit 451 was based on the ignition temperature of paper, given the initial role of Bradbury’s protagonist as a “fireman”: in the novel’s dystopian future setting, one who burns books. (The character refrains from that role over the course of the plot and resolves instead to help preserve literature.)
It is possible to generate temperature expressions using a wide range of units: “the unit conversions are gen’rable.” Via these unit conversions, the temperature of 451 degrees Fahrenheit is equivalent to 506 Kelvin or to 233 degrees Celsius.
However, as the poem notes, Bradbury’s famous title “seems far less memorable” when expressed on other scales, specifically the SI (International System) unit for temperature, which is the Kelvin, abbreviated as K.
Chemphasis 