451 (the degrees in Fahrenheit at which book paper burns)
Not really."So,
Ray Bradbury’s claim of 451 degrees Fahrenheit belongs here and to be fair to the master of science fiction – in his day, this was the number that was most widely believed to be true.
He couldn’t have known that his book about the burning of books (and thus, the title “Fahrenheit 451”) would catch on so well that the number would become permanently associated with the temperature that paper combusts at.
However, all the modern evidence says that
Bradbury’s number is probably a little on the low side. In particular, old textbooks (of the kind burned in
Bradbury’s book) seem to burn at around
481 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s not a huge difference but it is significant enough to be interesting.
This does not mean that if you throw a book into an oven at this temperature that it immediately bursts into flame..."