What a difference a few degrees make!

Few is subjective in part but it cannot be less than 4 and certainly not as much as 10 either so here we’ll settle for 7. As for degrees well …
If you lived in country where there is a real winter, snow and ice and all, you probably noticed the transition periods. When temperatures drop in Autumn, 15 degrees Celsius is comfortable still but 8 is not. And a couple weeks later, 5 degrees is cold but -2℃ is … m’well … freezing! Of course the same goes true in Spring. One week finds you hesitating about shedding a single layer of warm clothing, the next between big and small coats and then next yet coat, sweater or nothing. A few degrees variation in each case makes quite a difference and as soon as nights pass over the freezing point everyone’s mood also goes up!

Applying temperature to something else, 105 degrees Celsius boil your tea water just fine but 105 degrees Fahrenheit send you to the hospital whereas 98 respectively mean no tea and no problem! What a difference a few degrees make?

Suppose now that you are in a small area looking for something of normal size at a distance of a few ( again ) meters and get told to turn 45 degrees to your left. That’s easily understood as halfway between a square turn left and keeping straight but in reality, we rarely turn precisely 45 degrees. And yet, if we scan a bit as we progress we are almost certain to find what we where looking for. If however you are leaving Mexico City facing North and get told to veer 45 degrees left or West if you prefer, you’d normally end up in the Sacramento area. A few degrees less get you in San Diego and a few more in Tucson or Phoenix, Arizona though? And the further distance you travel with an error of a few degrees, the worst things get so miss aiming Mars with a probe or vessel and end up lost in space!

Let us consider through architecture what a difference of a few degrees make according to direction then. If you make an error of a few degrees in assessing the height of your foundation for instance for a normal house, you may end up with your base floor say four feet ( 1.2m ) too high. That would be corrected with seven degrees in the archaic sense of the word : steps, those being on average 7 inches ( 17+cm ) high. [ 7×7= 49 / 7×17 +119 ]
If however you make an error of a few degrees in the vertical direction of your building instead of the horizontal one, you’ll end up with it falling. Consider that the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa has less than 4 degrees of tilt :

W. Lloyd MacKenzie
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It had a cant of 5.5 degrees before a restoration brought it back somewhat. Had it reached 7 degrees of incline that it would have fallen! Similarly, degree errors in mathematic can make a big difference but which you may ignore if you do not solve polynomial equations daily … but those that do can’t!

In a different non scientific sense, degrees matter a lot too. Try and tell your parents that saved for your education that you don’t want a college degree for instance. Try mistaking musical degrees and check the result on the listeners faces. In fact a difference of one or two degrees can matter a whole lot if the word goes with burn ( third degree ) or murder ( first degree ) especially since the scales are inverted : a first degree burn is minor and can be shrugged off but a first degree murder is the worst and can get you the electrical chair. There are also vernacular expressions related to degrees and there too it is not trivial either. Being off to a degree is not too bad but being sad to a degree is usually unbearable.

Finally, there is one last case where even a single degree, much less a few, is dramatic. Those that ever got separated from love ones for a time but more so those that lost someone or fell out love can confirm that a single degree of separation more can feel like the end of your world!

What difference a few degrees make!
Tay.