Three scientists arguing over the definition of zero
Celsius says “zero is the freezing point of water”
Fahrenheit says “no, zero is the freezing point of ammonium chloride”
Kelvin says “hold my beer”
Is that true about fahrenheit? I’ve never heard that before.
It’s debated. One source points to the lower end of the scale established as the freezing point of a brine made by dissolving ammonium chloride in water.
If I remember correctly, it’s not the freezing point. Fahrenheit used a brine that included ammonium chloride to set 0 on his scale since it was the closest thing he could make in his lab that was a consistent temperature. The other end was body temperature, which he set at 96 if I’m remembering right since it’s more easily divisible than 100. He was a little off on his body temperature measurements so it’s considered a little higher than that now.
It’s more chaotic than that.
He started with the Romer scale (brine freezes at zero, water 7.5, boils at 60, body temperature 22.5), which he tweaked to not need fractions for plain water freezing and body temperature by fudging some numbers and multiplying by four.
This made water freeze at 30 and human body temperature 90. He recalibrated it so that it was 32 and 96 so that there were 64 degrees between them, so he could draw the markings by dividing the interval between them in half six times.
He then saw that water boiled at about 212 on this scale, so he tweaked it again so that water froze at 32 and boiled at 212, since they’re 180 degrees apart, which is desirable because it puts them on opposite sides of a temperature gauge.
Because of these tweaks, the original brine temperature is now about 4F, and body temperature is 98.6.
The tweaks make sense if you know that Fahrenheit was making and selling temperature gauges, so taking the Romer scale and marking every quarter degree gets you the first Fahrenheit scale.
Then he tweaked it to make it easier to produce, and then again to fit in the dial better.So he fudged the science so the product would be easier/cheaper to make? Why does this feel like such a common story?
How is changing a number fudging the science? Dude just liked powers of 2 so he set arbitrary things to be slightly different numbers. Heck, even Celsius is pretty arbitrary. The triple point of Hydrogen Hydroxide isn’t actually some magical mystical temperature that’s more important than all other temperatures, and the boiling point of one particular chemical at our best estimate of the average atmospheric pressure on the surface of this one particular rock is almost completely meaningless.
Because it wasn’t science. :) keep in mind it was before there was a notion that a temperature scale was part of science, it was part of a tool.
“My thermometer is easier to read and the scale is more likely to line up with what you want to measure”.It’s kinda like how a CD having 700mb of storage is a product of engineering choices and compatibility with older tape/record formats that usually had less than 80 minutes of audio, and not some fundamental measurement about the world.
The science he did was in making methods of consistently measuring temperature, not the numbers he assigned to those temperatures.
CDs have ~700 mb storage because that’s how many bytes it took to store 74 minutes, which was how long a CD needed to be to store Wilhelm Furtwängler’s 1951 recording of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. That was the longest copy of the Symphony they could find and so that’s what set the standard.
Kelvin: Zero is the freezing point of the universe
Kelvin: Zero is the freezing point.
Scientists: Of what?
Kelvin: Yes.
100C° is not death, it is Finnish sauna temp. Really, Sauna competitions start with 110C°. Famously in 2010 one Russian competitor died, and the Finn who won had to be sent to ER.
Shit, what’s the most hardcore sport? Rugby? No, saunas.
Sauna competitions
I appreciate how you just dropped this casually like of course everyone knows about Sauna competitions.
Haha, sure, but there isn’t much to know.
Sauna competition is that they go inside hot sauna and last one who comes out wins. They increase the temperature and throw water to the sauna stones. That humidity makes the temperature feel quite a lot harder (air is quite good insulator, which is why you don’t boil).
In the competition quite often people got first degree burn injuries, which is quite crazy.
Your user name makes a lot more sense now!
I think I’ve been in one getting close to 100 C. It was pretty unbearable after about a minute. Crazy Fins (I mean that in the way that I love them, but the saunas are crazy).
Username does not check out
Well in my defense, I wasn’t cooking bread at the time.
I think it means dead as in trying to live in a 100° environment. Kind of like the survival rule of 3s, where you can survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 hours in an extreme environment, and 3 minutes without air.
I guess it could say “unsustainable” instead of dead, but that’s less snappy.
3 hours in an extreme environment is so vague. you’d die in like 20 minutes naked in Antarctica, or you could survive just fine forever with proper clothing. you may die in a day and a half in the desert if you had no water
What’s so special about 0 - 100? 40° of civilized units sucks, but is still perfectly survivable and is becoming more and more common in some parts of the world. That’s 104° of fucked up units.
Negatives up to -30° are also common around the world and I frequently went out in shorts and t-shirt in -10° for a short time to grab mail or take out trash.
The only sort of reasonable justification for F units I’ve ever heard was that there’s less of a change between whole degrees, but decimals are not exactly hard to figure out imnho.
Americans are out here needing 100 degrees of magnitude between “it’s really cold outside” and “it’s really hot outside” while ignoring the scientific uses of anything outside of those values and you expect them to understand decimals?
How many “it’s really hot outside” until iron melts, or water boils, or meat cooks? Fuck knows. But I’ll be damned if I use punctuation in my maths, this country was founded on addition and subtraction and that’s all the founding fathers ever needed, now gtfo with your letters and periods and symbols in my mathematics.
How many “it’s really hot outside” until iron melts, or water boils, or meat cooks?
Who cares, we don’t need to know that at all in daily life.
But I’ll be damned if I use punctuation in my math
If we don’t need to why would we? Base-10 isn’t a virtue for a temperature measuring system mainly used to tell how it feels for a human to exist in the world
Zero is freezing
10 is not
20 is pleasing
30 is hot
40 frying
50 dying
The Kelvin timeline is the worst
lol!
The scales have their places.
F is range of comfortable heat for humans. 0 oppressively cold, 100 is oppressively hot. Nearly all humans can agree on that.
C is range of comfortable heat for liquid water at 1ATM.
K is range of comfortable heat for an atom. Except atoms can handle lots of heat.
Wait is there a universal maximum temperature? There must be, right? Like, it has to be impossible for atoms and subatomic particles to move faster than the speed of light, right?
Nah, Fahrenheit doesn’t have a place. Humans feel temperature differently to one another. You can’t make a set scale about it.
Humans have been known to live and thrive in temperatures well below 0°, as well as above 100°. And while 50° is the middle, it isn’t even a comfortable temperature for humans.
0° is based on what that one Polish town measured in winter during that one year 1709, only later did they find something to represent that temperature.
The world doesn’t need Fahrenheit. Humans don’t need it either.
Having this:
Humans feel temperature differently to one another. You can’t make a set scale about it.
And this:
The world doesn’t need Fahrenheit. Humans don’t need it either.
In the same comment is wild. Which is it, people all feel temperature differently so it’s impossible to make everyone agree on a scale, or Celsius is the one scale that everyone must agree on?
How do you know if the liquid water is comfortable? Did you ask it?
Apparently there is, called the Planck temperature
The theoretical maximum possible temperature is about 142 nonillion Kelvin (1.42x10^32 K), which is known as Planck Temperature. Current models of physics break down beyond this point, and it would only be possible at a state of thermal equilibrium. So possibly at the first instant after the Big Bang, and never again
I always have to comment when I read s.th. like this. And I read it a lot when it comes to temperature scales. Celsius is completely fine scale for humans, most of the world uses it without any complaints. A human cannot tell 22° and 23° C apart. Even americans using Fahrenheit say something like “temperature is in the fifties”. Fahrenheit (like lots of other scales in the US) has no real place in this world anymore except in this special american view…
thats very arbitrary. Normal temperature is between 0 and 30 C, and 15 C is comfortble for most people
So 50°F is perfect room temperature, right?
Ah, more FCK jokes.
Oh for FCK’s sake…
This is why I’m Fahrenheit gang all the way. I’m not running lab experiments daily, but I am going outside all the time. If you have to express the temperature with decimal precision for everyday use, you’ve lost.
Too much of your identity is wrapped up in being able to talk temperature in multiples of ten, people.
Wtf are you talking about? You’re the one that brought up how your favourite unit is superior, and we’re the one that has our identity wrapped up in something?
Chill out. Maybe something near 42 degrees. Sorry, meant to say 5.6 degrees for the nerds in here.
Do you know how math works? Of course you’re gonna end up with decimals when you’re starting from F. Why don’t you chill out at 11? Oh, I mean 51.8 you narcissistic swine.
I’d just say 52, but keep raging.
Ok, and I’d say 6? What’s your point lmao
My original point was that Fahrenheit is more useful as a gauge of human comfort temperature.
But now you’ve made my other point that there is a not-insignificant number of people, like you, who’s Identity is do wrapped up in the perceived superiority of all things metric that you get your panties in a twist a the slightest challenge. It’s honestly funny.
I mean, look at you for example. You voluntarily joined a conversation to go off on an unhinged rant and call call me names. Just take a moment to think about your life and the choices you’ve made to bring you to this point where you lose your shit over a unit of measure.
You shat in the middle of the room, calling everyone names, and when everyone get annoyed you don’t get to get on the high horse my guy.
You’re the one that made the unprovoked comment on how your favourite unit is better. You’re the one that called people nerds for some reason. You spent hours replying to dozens of people and you call people unhinged? Have you looked in the mirror? You’re literally doing what you’re making fun of me for doing but tenfold my friend. You’re the one that started saying your team is better for no reason. And when people point out you made no sense you make fun of people for replying? Are you okay?
Do you honestly think you’re winning? You’re trolling people? Trolling used to take effort back in my day. know what, it’s my fault. People always say you shouldn’t argue with dumb ass because they’ll drag you down to their level and win with experience. I voluntarily touched the poop.
Stay mad lmao
You’re a weird dude. Go find something to do that makes you happy. Whatever you’ve got now isn’t working.
Isn’t Celsius smaller steps so without decimals, Celsius is more precise than Fahrenheit
You’ve got that backwards. One degree Celsius covers a wider range than one degree Fahrenheit, so Fahrenheit has more precision if you leave off decimals.
20 C is 68 F, and 21C is 69.8F. One degree C is nearly two degrees fahrenheit.IT doesn’t actually matter for common usage of either, but fahrenheit does have a smaller step between degrees.
I do actually wish I could have a decimal place on my truck thermostat. 20 is always too cold and 21 too hot in the winter. And if I change it to F for the increased resolution it’ll change my speedo to miles and shit. Damn future.
which temperature unit requires using decimals?
Have you ever stayed in a hotel with the wall thermostat set to C? If so, press the up/down temperature buttons. They’ll move by 0.2 or 0.5 usually.
many times, and no they don’t.
Go figure. I guess the hotels I stay at don’t exist then. Thanks for the info.
Who said that? I’m in Europe, and here all temperature controls I’ve seen move in 1 degree increments. Maybe it’s different in the states.
People who use Celsius don’t typically casually refer to the temperature with a decimal place.
The comfortable range is more compressed, but just like you probably say 75 instead of 74.5, they say 24 instead of 23.889.
Fahrenheit does coincidentally line up nicely for subjective weather scales, so it’s not offensive for that use, similar to how pint is a good cup size, but in general consistency is king and you’re not loosing anything by compressing a scale, particularly when we basically already measure the temperature in five degree increments, and generally refer to in in units of ten.
As a metric person, I can confirm.
Indoor temperatures are basically 18-22 for most people most of the time.
15-25 covers the whole range of indoor temperatures that people with functioning heat or A/C would see.
For temperatures outside we commonly round to the nearest five:*
- -5 and below: very cold winter weather
- 0 cold winter weather
- 5 mild winter weather
- 10 autumn weather
- 15 spring weather
- 20 summer weather
- 25 beach weather
- 30 heatwave
- 35 and higher heatwave in the Sahara
The only thing I admire of the Fahrenheit scale is that it can round to the nearest 10 and still be a little bit more precise than Celsius with the nearest 5. And when discussing fever temperatures, Celsius needs half degrees and Fahrenheit does not.
But it’s an absolutely awful scale for cooking.
For cooking I think it’s mostly a matter of what you’re used to. Neither 145 or 63 are particularly “intuitive” numbers in my opinion, so as long as it’s clear which you’re using it doesn’t really matter.
Of course, generations of humans cooked without thermometers or thermostats. You could cook with the Rankine scale if you get used to it .
But let me just say, I don’t think it’s an accident France is both the originator of the Metric system and haute cuisine.
Advanced cooking is as much engineering as it is art.
So, it actually isn’t a coincidence, but not in the way that you’re implying. :)
After their whole “fuck the monarchy” phase, France got deep into “throw it out and replace it with something better”. Part of that was metric, and part was “OMG they’re so many unemployed royal chefs now, what if we made it so everyone could have a chance to eat like a king for a meal?”.
Surplus chefs, a cultural tilt towards trying new things, and Frances historical position giving them access to a huge array of spices, meat, dairy and fish made for a great opportunity for culinary revolution.
So they’re both born from the same spirit, but one didn’t cause the other. :) Thankfully they didn’t go the way of metric time, or the French revolutionary calendar, neither of which panned out.
In Canada the scale goes higher and lower.
- -5 to -10: a warm day in the winter, a break from the misery
- -10 to -20: Ugh, again?
- -20 to -40: Wow, it’s actually really cold out!
- -40 and below: Wow, even with all my winter gear, this is going to suck.
Then sometimes in summer:
- 35-40: WTF, we’re hotter than the Sahara again!
Rounding Fahrenheit temperatures to 10 is less precise than rounding Celsius temperatures to 5.
Yeah, but precision really doesn’t matter for the scale of “what do I wear outside”. “The 70s” and ”20-25” both convey “short sleeves, light pants or shorts”.
If you want precision you shouldn’t be rounding at all, and you’re probably doing something where you should use Celsius because of convention. Rounding and precision don’t really go together.
I agree; I was just being precise.
Fahrenheit does coincidentally line up nicely for subjective weather scales
In what sense?
similar to how pint is a good cup size
Actually a pint is 2 cups.
In the sense that the image we’re talking under is discussing. Below zero is when air temperature starts to get hazardous, and above 100. The ten degree increments are convenient delineations of rough weather conditions in an actionable way.
This isn’t intentional on the part of Fahrenheit, and it’s not some deal breaking feature since people who use Celsius for the same thing obviously know when to wear a coat or if the air will kill them outside.
It’s just a nice coincidence.Actually a pint is 2 cups.
Nice.
Below zero is when air temperature starts to get hazardous
Hazardous in what sense? If you’re not wearing proper clothing, lower than 10C can be hazardous. Many hikers who get lost get hypothermia even if it’s above zero because they were dressed for an energetic hike, not sitting around waiting for a rescue.
If you are properly dressed, -10C is no big deal. Many people do outdoor sports for hours when the temperature is well in the negatives.
IMO, if you’re within 10C of ideal room temperature, you may be uncomfortable but you’re probably not in danger. But, if the temperature is above 30C or below 10C you need to take precautions: shade and water in the case of hot weather, warm clothing in the case of cold weather. I don’t think there’s anything special about 0C for humans, except for the fact it’s when water turns to ice, rain turns to snow, etc. If you have the right gear, 5C, 0C, -10C and -20C are all survivable, possibly even comfortable. You just need more and more specialized gear as the temperature gets lower.
Like I said, people who use Celsius know when to wear a coat.
But if we’re maintaining that 0 and 100 are special numbers, then Fahrenheit maps hazardous conditions more neatly to those numbers.
I don’t think 0 and 100 have as much special significance as people seem to think when it’s assigned to water.
Like I said, people who use Celsius know when to wear a coat.
So do people who use Fahrenheit.
But if we’re maintaining that 0 and 100 are special numbers, then Fahrenheit maps hazardous conditions more neatly to those numbers.
I completely disagree. 0 Fahrenheit is very cold, but there’s nothing special about that temperature. You need to start dressing for cold conditions long before it gets that cold, and if you dress for cold conditions you can easily handle temperatures well below 0F. 100F is also nothing useful. Yes, it’s very hot, but you start needing to take precautions for heat long before it hits 100F.
Basically the Fahrenheit scale has nothing particularly useful at 0 or 100F. The Celsius scale has useful things at 0C and 100C. 100C is not useful for weather, but 0C is very useful for weather because it tells you whether it’s likely to be icy out.
I don’t say 74.5, your right but I do care when the temperature is set to 72 or 73. I can tell the difference of that vs. 70 even.
And you can’t go outside when you’re too dense to read the temperature?
What? No one’s using C to that precision outside the lab. It just depends on what you grew up with man. I know below 0 I need a winter jacket, ~10C chilly, ~20C is shorts weather, ~30C is hot, >40C is death. Perfectly practical everyday estimations.
For me the only advantage of F is you can say it’s 69F out and bake things at 420F.
Also let me point out one nice feature here - the freezing point is 0. Bellow it you can expect snow instead of rain, ice on the road, sidewalk, plants are in danger, etc. A lot of things and situations in your life are affected by this simple fact that water freezes so it’s nice that we have it at 0.
Fahrenheit has 32°F …
And water boiling at 100C is useful too because boiling water is used so often in cooking.
I gotta ask, do you use a thermometer to boil water?
Metric is a more coherent system, but let’s not pretend it’s magic or more than it is.
The numeric value associated with boiling water has no impact on cooking, because the boiling water doesn’t care.I gotta ask, do you use a thermometer to boil water?
No, but I use a thermometer (built into the electric kettle) to prepare tea. Greens want to be brewed at 75-80C. Whites are often about 70C. Oolongs are about 95C.
The numeric value associated with boiling water has no impact on cooking, because the boiling water doesn’t care.
But the human who is doing the cooking might care.
The most I use in temperature is setting the air conditioner at work from 68 to 70 or 72 depending how hard I’m working
Eh, it’s just exchanging what brain cells are used to remember what.
With Fahrenheit you need brain cells to remember that 32°F is freezing point of water. With Celsius, you need brain cells to remember that 40°C+ is super hot outside.
But, with Fahrenheit you also need brain cells to remember that 90F is super hot outside.
Well, it usually doesn’t actually start to freeze and snow at 32/0. It’s usually got to be below freezing for a while before it gets icy, and it’ll often snow above freezing and sleet below. It’s usually more dangerous if it’s above freezing because the layers of melting ice make the unmelted ice far more slick.
It’s why for weather information, it really doesn’t matter what scale you use so much as knowing where those bands are on the scale you use.
The peril is a gradient, so the actual number that matches freezing really doesn’t matter.At least that’s my take as a person who lives somewhere where cold weather conditions are a frequent topic of conversation.
The temperature itself doesn’t start to get perilous until you’re in the negatives on the Fahrenheit scale, or -17C.Exactly. My car warns me about freezing conditions starting at 37 F.
I agree with most of that, but I have been in Phoenix, AZ in ~42°C. Sure it wasn’t pleasant, but I’m not dead.
Edit: For extended periods, absolutely. For AC building hopping, survivable.
Dry heat vs moist heat
At those temperatures, it’s dangerous either way with dry having a slight benefit of being able to do mist cooling better than moist (30° F cooling vs 5-10° F cooling), but that requires water… Phoenix is in a desert
That is a slight exaggeration, but I know here in Australia if you went out in 42C with no sun protection then yeah, you’re not having a good time and it is a risk to life.
In July 2023 in Phoenix on the 20th and 25th it was 119° F or 48.3° C. Not as much an exaggeration as I would like it to be.
It’s regularly 79° F to 107° F or 26° C to 41° C in Phoenix in summer. Lately it’s been hotter (past 5 years)
At those temperatures, dry or wet, it’s still gonna be dangerous.
Not trying to argue here, but the fact those were both last year should be enough of an indication to our political “leaders” that climate change is a major threat.
Source: Extreme temps from weather.gov
Not trying to argue here
Why not, you coward?! Fite me!
But, seriously, no one is gonna argue that, here on lemmy, you’re just preaching to the choir.
Just been burned too many times online. Dealing with libs of tiktok and Matt Walsh is a major pain in the ass.
When pizzas call for 425°F, I purposely set the temp at 420° because of course
the food poisoning is so worth it
I’m not expert in Fahrenheit but that difference doesn’t feel like it’d make a difference
More than that, the temperature gradient inside the oven is far greater than that difference
Uh, what? You do know you can cook pizzas at different temps to affect crust consistency, and that as long as meats are cooked to a proper internal temperature, bacteria is killed?
… You don’t. But I find it funny when failheit rounds to the nearest 10s in conversation.
And believe it or not Celsius is much better for outside because it’s actually zeroed to the actual fucking weather.
I never round 10 degrees, that’s crazy. Definitely to a nearby while number though.
“What’s the temperature going to be today?”
“I think low 60s in the morning and 75 or 78 for the high.”
So, maybe a 5 degree range max.
Dude you just did it, “low 60s”.
I see it even on weather forecasts “We’re going to get into the high 70s” which I think is what you didn’t want to say, so you now specified 78.
And it’s still a completely floating, arbitrary scale.
Dude you just did it, “low 60s”.
???
You do know that low 60s is not a 10 degree span, right? Right??
I’m beginning to see why some of you can’t handle Fahrenheit units of measure…
That’s what I call round to the nearest 10 degrees. High/low of tens unit if you realllllly want to be pedantic. But at this point I think you’re trying to be really pedantic to win fahrenheit.
Because the point is: I find it funny when people say Fahrenheit is so much more accurate when they round to the nearest high/low of the tens unit, but then think Celsius has to be given in decimal lol.
What.
Maybe someday a metric country will take 13th place for walking on the moon
That burn was out of this world
Guess which system NASA uses
It is worth pointing out though that NASA employees use imperial units in their everyday lives. Using both systems may have given US scientists and engineers a competitive advantage over European scientists and engineers.
Pre- or post- Mars orbiter?
Well they did for the moon landing, and have as a policy since 1979.
I didn’t know about why that orbiter failed though, pretty funny!
The orbiter failed because while NASA used metric, the contractor (Lockheed Martin, I believe?) used imperial for one system and no one caught their mistake.
I refuse
Chuckled at this. Well done
When I’m reading through dates, January gives me a hell of a lot more information than “the fifteenth”
Then use ISO and start with the year, which gives you even more information.
Not necessarily. I work outdoors, the month gives extremely important seasonal context. “A July” tells more than “1985”… although realistically I need both for any conceivable purpose.
You don’t need decimals for everyday measurements. No one can tell the difference between 60 and 62 degrees F. With Celsius 10 or 5 degree ranges is all you need to know for weather purposes, and it falls into much more logical ranges.
Below 0 = cold, limit time outside 0-10C = wear a coat 10-15 = wear a jacket 15-20 = comfortable 20-25 = shorts 25-30 = hot 30-40 = limit time outside 40+ = thank you global warming; don’t live here.
People can spend hours outside at below 0C temperatures as long as they’re wearing the right gear. Some people even like doing sports outside when it’s -20C.
But, you’re right that most of the time people only care to the 5 degree range. It’s a bit different when it’s close to the ideal room temperature. If you personally like it at 22C and the room is set to 20C you will probably feel cold after a while. If it’s 24C you’ll probably feel overly warm. But, except for something like measuring a fever, people almost never care about fractional degrees.
No one can tell the difference between 60 and 62 degrees F.
This is true in the sense that someone can’t walk into a room and say “it’s 62F in here” accurately, but if you’re in a room that’s 60F and you raise the temperature to 62F you can definitely feel the difference.
If you have to express the temperature with decimal precision for everyday use, you’ve lost.
I don’t think it’s necessary to do in Celsius though?
“Necessary” is a strong word, but it is, moreso than when using Fahrenheit.
Weather, cooking, at least people around me don’t use decimals for that. One degree C is not really big enough difference for those two to break down into decimals. Moreso I guess in the sense that one Fahrenheit difference is smaller than the same for Celsius. Do you know people using decimals for daily stuff with C?
When measuring body temperature, digital temp gauges usually, and my cars AC thermostat (0.5C jumps) come to mind right away.
But honestly you’re using decimals so much during daily life that it’s really a 2nd nature to deal with them.
I don’t measure my body temp daily. Maybe it’s a thing some do but I don’t think I know anyone who does. As for cars, don’t know about those. I could see them doing decimals in AC but I also don’t see it as something that’s needed. Mine just had heater with those things you turn where the slider goes █ ▆ ▄ ▁
Yeah not quite “daily” thing but very very common thing especially since kid started kindergarten lol
Hah, that I can believe
I think it’s a straw man personally because most people will still talk in integer amounts.
Nobody even uses exact degrees when using Fahrenheit and talking about the weather. You can’t feel the difference between 71 and 72. Most people just round off to the nearest 5 degrees or so when talking about the weather. With Celsius you might be slightly more likely to use a non-rounded value, say 22 degrees instead of 20 or 25. But, you’re almost never going to use fractional degrees.
You’re completely right, but this community gets way too much satisfaction from their “fAhReNhEiT sUcKs lMaO” circlejerk so you’re getting downvoted.
But you’re absolutely correct.
There is another! Woo hoo!
It’s kind of telling (and hilarious to me) how many comments I was able to spawn just by saying, “I like Fahrenheit better”. People using Celsius for daily, is-it-comfy-for-a-human use absolutely lose their shit if you challenge them.
We all subjectively are more used to our scales, and what numbers mean “very hot” and “very cold” are very varied based on your physiology, adaptation to the climate and the relative humidity.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero (slight variation due to pressure), and you get enough days below zero water of different amounts will start freezing. Which I’d argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather. Water freezing at zero is a useful distinction.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph with an X axis for time and y for temp. To get the equivalent nice graph in Fahrenheit gotta put a line at whatever weird number lines up with freezing.
A random city which I thought may be dipping below zero. That’s interesting, there’s a line at freezing, almost like that’s useful or something.
Putting a line that’s not zero, look at what Fahrenheit needs to do to mimic a fraction of our power!
We all subjectively are more used to our scales
Definitely agree. We’re comfortable with what we grew up with and there’s nothing wrong with that.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero … Which I’d argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather.
Ehhh, only if you have to think of freezing as zero. For us Fahrenheiters, “above 0” is cold but manageable with a coat. “below 0” means don’t go outside unless you have to. That’s a pretty convenient gauge to me.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph
Of course. If you’re plotting shit on a graph then you’re likely doing lab work, and I’ll agree that celsius is a great scale. Not for daily “how’s the weather” use though.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero … Which I’d argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather.
Ehhh, only if you have to think of freezing as zero. For us Fahrenheiters, “above 0” is cold but manageable with a coat. “below 0” means don’t go outside unless you have to. That’s a pretty convenient gauge to me.
Notice how 0 means something concrete for celcius, and for Fahrenheit it’s just your subjective feeling. I’d argue this is an objective benefit, which mean celcius takes the cake for weather too (and it’s a tie or Celcius in every othe case, also). Ice forming means it gets slippery. Having a distinct indication of a negative symbol and emphasis on freezing at zero, I’d argue, is starting to be objectively more useful, since nothing in particular changes state at 0 °F which is of daily use.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph
Of course. If you’re plotting shit on a graph then you’re likely doing lab work, and I’ll agree that celsius is a great scale. Not for daily “how’s the weather” use though.
But I gave you weather graphs 🙁, this isn’t lab work in the slightest, that’s real-world everyday stuff. And funnily enough the Fahrenheit graph had a line at freezing too. Just not at 0.
Celcius is absolutely for “how’s the weather” use, and it’s even slight better for “how’s the weather”.
Point of order, the Celsius chart also has a line.
Without a scale on the axis it’s kinda necessary with both so I’m not sure that conveyed your point too well.Celsius is good because of how it fits with the rest of metric and the units stay pretty rather often, and because everyone else uses it.
That it makes water freeze at zero is kinda the smaller bit. As you mention, charts can just have lines on them because you can’t see the axis and it’s really not that hard to remember 32 vs 0. Hell, I remember both. Also 100, 212 and 451. Had to lookup 233 though, I don’t remember that one.My point here is that both graphs have a line at freezing (°F and °C). My point is that freezing is a useful differentiation when it comes to weather. Celcius is suitably set to have freezing at zero, a nice round number, which then is negative when water starts to freeze.
It’s not that hard to remember, sure, and both systems work okay, but I dislike when people pretend there aren’t objective (however slight) advantages to Celcius for every day use.
I’d challenge anyone to find a benefit to Fahrenheit that isn’t subjective, for every day use. (Because as noted, Celcius obviously wipes the floor with Fahrenheit in scientific use)
I feel people are clutching at straws trying to justify why Fahrenheit is “better”, or even “as good” for everyday use. But heck, they should just live with the fact they just like it, and that’s fine. (Just keep it to themselves because they’ll get weirdos like me on the internet who will tell them they’re wrong).
No degree sign for the my man Kelvin?
Kelvin actually isn’t written with a degree sign!
And I will continue to demand it should! But yeah, sadly it’s not…
why should it? none of the other SI units get their own fancy symbol in between the number and the unit
Jokes on you I’m a tardigrade
I read somewhere that Farenheight is the scale of how hot/cold people are, Celcius is the scale of how hot/cold water is, and Kelvin is the scale of how hot/cold particles are.
Celsius.
And the other one is spelled wrong too I believe, though that one doesn’t really matter.
Lol whoops… I just changed it to F/C/K because fuckin whatever. Ya’ll know what I’m trying to say.
Someone posted here once something like
Farienhiet is how humans feel. Celsius is how water feels. Kelvin is how atoms feel.
I kinda like that.
And Rankine is a sin.
I was mocking up a control panel for a makerspace vacuum former as a potential project (didn’t end up happening), and I put in controls for Celsius, Kelvin, Farenheit, and Rankine. Then I wanted a unit more ridiculous than Rankine, so I invented the Nihon. Zero Nihon is the freezing point of Nihonium, and 100 is the boiling point. Except it’s the theoretical point, because Nihonium has too short of a half life to actually study.
It only makes sense if you grow up with Fahrenheit. Otherwise Fahrenheit isn’t how humans feels since most of us have no concept what these number mean.
If I would just go with 0 - cold 100 - hot I would assume 50 - perfect. But 50 is still chilly. 70-80 feels like it should be getting hot but that’s the most comfortable temperature.
Honestly it makes more sense with Celsius. -40 is really cold. +40 is really hot
Again. 0 is still freezing. But in the relative scale it’s not so bad
No, Celsius doesn’t make more sense in regard to how humans feel. It just feels more intuitive to us because we are used to the numbers. But if you try to explain the scala to someone the numbers feel entirely arbitrary with no real reason behind it. Why is 40 the really hot? 40 is such a weird number for humans.
0 being cold, 100 being hot makes sense, anyone can grasp that concept. But the inbetween steps of Fahrenheit make no sense. It isn’t intuitive, it only makes sense if you are used to them. A intuitive scala would be:
0 - cold, you need proper winter clothes 25 - chilly, you need a light jacket 50 - room temperature 75 - getting uncomfortably hot 100 - too hot, heatstroke is a real danger
For Celsius, it’s 0 and under for proper winter clothes and the cutoff for snow (though it can snow above that due to temperature variance at higher altitudes and snow can melt below that due to the sun, so it’s a bit of a soft cutoff).
0 - 10 is chilly, pants and coat weather, though you might unzip your coat at the higher end.
10 - 20 is pants and jacket weather, though you’ll remove your jacket at the higher end.
20 - 30 is shorts and short sleeve weather and IMO the perfect range.
30 - 40 is getting uncomfortably or even deadly hot, depending on the person and humidity level.
I disagree. Cold should be negative numbers
Mate you talk about Celsius being arbitrary but it’s literally the other way around. 0 and 100 in f are bothe completely arbitrary. 0 outside has no real significance. In C its when you can start to expect ice and snow, so gives you actual information about the weather. The f scale could justnas well be 7° to 96° and it would make no difference.
You miss the point of the discussion. The discussion is about how Fahrenheit relate to how humans interact with numbers and relate that number to temperature based on how that temperature feels.
I am not saying Celsius is arbirtray, I am saying that 40 being really hot is a weird number for most humans to associate with “hottest weather you are somewhat likely experience”. Of course if you grew up with Celsius it feels second nature. But for someone who isn’t familiar with either Celsius or Fahrenheit, the 0 - 100 could be way more intutive. Fahrenheit still fails at this because the numbers between 0-100 don’t really add up with what’s intuitive.
That’s why I said the original argument of “Fahrenheit is how humans feel” doesn’t work.
hottest weather you are somewhat likely experience"
Butyoure missing my point. In that there’s nothing special about 100°f. It’s not like 101f is some super rare or impossible temperature or anything . Or is any major different to 99f.
Of course if you grew up with Celsius it feels second nature. But for someone who isn’t familiar with either Celsius or Fahrenheit, the 0 - 100 could be way more intutive.
I did actually grow up on f, until I moved to the UK. C is just a better system. I think you’re VASTLY overestimating the utility of the scale going to 100 instead of 40 (and really if you want to get technical you can say C goes from -50 to 50 and that’s still a 100 point scale) especially as you can argue the 0-100 scale almost infers a percentile, so gives the false impression that 50f is “50% hot” which it very much isnt, its actually pretty chilly.
It makes sense if you’re used to 70 being a C average like in school
I really like your attention to detail here. Fahrenheit and Celsius both have degree symbols, but Kelvin doesn’t – just as it should be.
Really cold water, really hot water 😎
Which is 10.48 feet per gallon
Or 0.8435 meters per liter
Which is 1.1855 liter per meter.
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