Instead of taking the temperature of a representative sample of customers, firms must identify the few special customers who innovate.

ECONOMIST: The future of innovation

His formula would become a way of taking the market's temperature, of providing a measurement.

FORBES: Mandelbrot: A Math Maverick Takes Stock

His book addresses the argument in cost-benefit terms, and concludes that spending 1-2% of global output to avoid a significant temperature rise is a bargain worth taking a similar conclusion to that in his original 2006 study.

ECONOMIST: What to do?

In the meantime, Weather Channel has used a simpler measure, called "feels like, " to express temperature in a temperature-like number, taking into account wind chill at low temperatures and humidity at high temperatures.

WSJ: In the Forecast: New Ways to Measure the Temperature

The wind chill today will slice us up - it's taking the temperature down to below -50C, so we have decided to take a day's rest to recharge our batteries and soothe the aches and pains.

BBC: Arctic diary: Explorers' ice quest

In 2003 it was covered up by the media but later blipped briefly that the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Belcher, which was supposedly due to taking the herb Ephedra was actually due to heat stroke when he collapsed with a core temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit in Florida.

FORBES: Extradite Andrew Wakefield To Face Fraud Charges In The UK

Climate sensitivity is how much will the temperature change over a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (more strictly, CO2-e, taking account of methane and all the other gasses and converting them to CO2 equivalents).

FORBES: Lower Climate Sensitivity Means That Climate Change Becomes A Much Cheaper Problem To Solve