Well, personally, I find having the freezing point of water defined as zero and the boiling point as 100 quite intuitive and easy to use. To me, due to my experience growing up in Canada (mostly) after the metric change-over, having the freezing point of water at 32 seems quite counter-intuitive. Kelvins are useful for science (is there an aboslute Farenheit equivalent?) but not very intuitive for day to day use.
It's based on mercury. He was trying to scale his mercury themometer for maximum use. 0 deg F is as cold as he could make it and he tried to make 96 deg normal human body temp, so he could detect fevers.
Kelvins are useful for science (is there an aboslute Farenheit equivalent?)
Rankine. Same size degree as F, but zeroed at absolute. R=F+459.67
SD