Human body temperature to give the most accurate assessment of core body temperature, particularly in hypothermia. In the early 2000s, ingestible thermistors in capsule form were produced, allowing the temperature inside the digestive tract to be transmitted to an external receiver; one study found that these were comparable in accuracy to rectal temperature measurement. In the 19th century, most books quoted "blood heat" as 98 °F, until a study published the mean (but not the variance) of a large sample as . Subsequently that mean was widely quoted as "37 °C or 98.4 °F" until editors realised 37 °C is closer to 98.6
Temperature zero point, , is defined to coincide with the coldest physically-possible temperature (called absolute zero). Its degrees are defined through thermodynamics. The temperature of absolute zero occurs at = (or ), and the freezing point of water at sea-level atmospheric pressure occurs at = . The International System of Units (SI) defines a scale and unit for the kelvin or thermodynamic temperature by using the reliably reproducible temperature of the triple point of water as a second reference point (the first reference point being at absolute zero). The triple point is a singular state with its own unique and invariant