Bryson again emphasizes how recent our knowledge of the weather is, since adequate tools to measure the weather didn’t exist until the 1700s. Scientific discovery is often limited, as it is here, by technology. Once sufficiently accurate technology develops, however, it’s important for the measurement systems scientists devise (like the way they express their theories) to be clear and accessible. Bryson implies that Celsius’s temperature scale, for example, is more intuitive and therefore better than Fahrenheit’s scale.