Americans always regurgite the “Fahrenheit is how people feel” nonsense, but it is just that: nonsense. Americans are familiar with fahrenheit so they think that it is more inituitive than other systems, but unsurprisingly people who are used to celsius have no problems using it to measure “how people feel” and will think it is a very inituitive system.
Can confirm. Moved from the US to Canada and maybe a year of using Celcius revealed to me just how fucking stupid and convoluted Fahrenheit is. My dad spent three weeks out here and started using Celcius on his phone. Now I only use Fahrenheit when dealing with fevers or temping cases of suspiciously overripe produce.
Fellow Americans. Celcius is superior and more intuitive for those who take a moment to adjust to it. It is okay to accept this as fact without developing an inferiority complex. USA not always #1. USA quite often not #1 and that is okay. It is okay for USA to not be #1 without developing an inferiority complex.
The universe is mostly empty space with an average temperature of like… 4 Kelvin or some shit. Why not use a system that reflects that? Oh, we do? Right. Celsius is Kelvin + 273.15.
Slightly off topic, but 23°C is a nice room temperature? We have our thermostats at 20°C and I find it quite warm. In the sleeping room we have 18°C and so do I have in my office, which I find quite comfortable. I hate visiting my parents, they always have 22.5°C which I find uncomfortably warm.
Well it’s all subjective after all, I’ll be happy about chilly 23°C inside when summer comes.
What is your point? That people who use Celsius can’t feel the difference between 21.7°C and 22.8°C?
If you’re worried about your thermometer, you’ll be happy to hear that metric ones usually have finer precision than Fahrenheit ones, since they go in .5°C steps. Since +1°F means +5/9°C, you have less precision!
It’s just an incredibly weak defense. Why is it worse for C to use an extra decimal for these differences? I can just as well argue that C is a more accurate representation, because small differences in temperature are smaller. Just like your argument, this is purely an opinion - until you can show me that not needing the extra decimal is objectively better, or until I can show you that smaller differences being represented as such is objectively better, neither of them holds any weight.
It’s the same reason we use abbreviations and contractions when speaking. A trivial simplification is still a simplification.
Why bother with Celcius at all when there is Kelvin. Even Kelvin is arbitrary. Best to use Planck normalized temperature. The scale would be absolute 0 to 100 where 0 is absolute 0 and 100 is 10^32 Kelvin.
So whenever you have to tell someone the temperature outside, you say it’s 0.000000000000000000000000015237 Planck
If 3 digits isn’t more a tiny bit more cumbersome than 2, then 32 digits is fine too.
I would argue it’s because of historical usage, familiarity, and resistance to change. Most countries and most people living in hot climates use Celsius.
Do not say anything positive about Fahrenheit in this thread… the Temperature Scale Inquisition is watching closely for any dissent from the party line.
Hum… Around here water boils at ~96°C (some labs measure that). And it seems to not freeze at 0°C anywhere on Earth, as it’s never pure water, with never an homogeneous freezing point.
It is repeatable, it’s not very arbitrary, but “intuitive” doesn’t apply in any way.
You must be at altitude. That definitely makes a difference for the boiling point, but of course water freezes at 0. Impurities that you’ll encounter in tap water, for example, will not have a large effect on freezing point.
Even if it was different by a few degrees, how does that make the scale any less intuitive?
No it really doesn’t. Knowing water freezes at 0 gives you no help in day to day life vs knowing 32 or 300 for water to freeze. You still have to be cautious driving above the freezing point. Your refrigerator sits a few degrees above 0 instead of 35 or 305.
Knowing it’s 20 out only tells you useful information because you memorized what that feels like. You could just have internalized what 375 feels like.
Celsius is nice if you need to build a thermometer from scratch. That’s not something people generally do.
I mean, you’re 100% wrong. Fahrenheit isn’t “how people feel” arbitrarily, it’s almost literally a 0-100 scale of how hot it is outside. You need no prior knowledge to interpret a Fahrenheit measurement. Which really reflects poorly on everyone who says “Fahrenheit doesn’t make any sense” because if they were capable of any thought at all they would figure it out in 2 seconds, like everyone else. I’m a lab rat that uses Celsius all day every day, I’m just not a pretentious stuck up tool about alternate measurements just because I refuse to understand them.
I like that Fahrenheit has a narrower range for degrees. 1C is 1.8 degrees F. So, F allows you to have more precision without the use of decimals. Like, 71F feels noticeably different to me than 64F, but that is only a 3.8 degree difference in C.
Where in the chicken I jam the thermometer makes several degrees difference. If you truly require that level of granularity whilst grilling, I’d wager reading a decimal figure isn’t the end of the world. Us normies can continue to bring chicken to 74 and call it a day
3 degrees celcius is easily noticeable too so that’s a bit of a moot point. If anything, 1 degree celcius is much harder to discern and therefore having an even more granular scale is unnecessary.
It is really easy to map onto human feel though. 0-100 pretty accurately maps onto our minimum and maximum realistically survivable temps, long-term, and the middle temperatures of those are the most comfortable. It’s far more round, when it comes to describing human preference and survivability, than Celsius is.
I bet a lot more people know what 0°C feels like than 0°F. One is freezing point, one is a completely arbitrary temperature which only gets called “the lowest you’ll experience” as a post hoc rationalisation of Fahrenheit. Most people will never experience anything that cold, some people experience colder.
I even bet more people know what 100°C feels like than 100°F. One is accidentally getting scalded by boiling water, the other is a completely arbitrary temperature which is quite hot but not even the hottest you’ll experience in America.
boiling water isnt necessarily 100c. if youre boiling water, it can be any arbitrary temperature above 100.
thats like going to a geyser pit and saying thats 100c, when it isnt. when you cook and let water come to a boil, the chef doesnt care that its exactly 100c, only that its in the state above 100.
If anything it’ll be below 100 due to altitude. For example salt water for making pasta boils still at approx 100 deg. C. It takes quite a lot of salt (way more than you would ever want to consume) to meaningfully raise the boiling point.
if youre boiling water, it can be any arbitrary temperature above 100.
That’s not how boiling works. The water heats up to its boiling point where it stops and boils. While boiling the temperature does not increase, it stays exactly at the boiling point. This is called “Latent Heat”, at its boiling point water will absorb heat without increasing in temperature until it has absorbed enough for its phase to change.
What makes 0F (-18C) special? How do you estimate survivability at such temperature? If I’d be out on the street naked, I would die there in a matter of minutes. At the same time, there is plenty of places where winter temperatures go -40F (-40C) and even below, yet people very much survive and live there.
Similar with 100F (38C). There are places with higher temps in the summer, up to 120F (49C) in some places, yet people survive. Still, if you’re not equipped with anything, 100F (38C) will burn you alive.
All that not to mention that 50F (10C) is actually cold, not comfortable.
Fahrenheit is only intuitive and “feeling-descriptive” because you’re used to it. From a person born in Celsius country, it’s really not less intuitive.
I know I can be comfortable in my birthday suit at around 25C. Less than 20 is chilly, less than 10 - cold, less than 0 - freezing. More than 30 is hot, more than 40 is deadly.
Americans always regurgite the “Fahrenheit is how people feel” nonsense, but it is just that: nonsense. Americans are familiar with fahrenheit so they think that it is more inituitive than other systems, but unsurprisingly people who are used to celsius have no problems using it to measure “how people feel” and will think it is a very inituitive system.
Can confirm. Moved from the US to Canada and maybe a year of using Celcius revealed to me just how fucking stupid and convoluted Fahrenheit is. My dad spent three weeks out here and started using Celcius on his phone. Now I only use Fahrenheit when dealing with fevers or temping cases of suspiciously overripe produce.
Fellow Americans. Celcius is superior and more intuitive for those who take a moment to adjust to it. It is okay to accept this as fact without developing an inferiority complex. USA not always #1. USA quite often not #1 and that is okay. It is okay for USA to not be #1 without developing an inferiority complex.
deleted by creator
Fahrenheit is European.
*was
I use it and I am not European.
Fahrenheit has a fine granularity that is lost in cold climates. It’s why the Bahamas/Belize use it as well.
Well you know that you can use the decimals?
How is - 40.000001°F more fine than - 40.00000000001°C?
23°C is a nice room temperature.
18°C is a bit chilly but still a comfortable temperature.
If you want to go for a finer destinction then we cann say 18.5°C is warmer but I personally can’t feel the difference.
Our bodies are mostly water why not use a system that reflects this?
The universe is mostly empty space with an average temperature of like… 4 Kelvin or some shit. Why not use a system that reflects that? Oh, we do? Right. Celsius is Kelvin + 273.15.
…rankine glowers in your general direction…
Are you made of mostly empty space? Your response does leave me questioning. Please aknowledge that you are made of 64% water and not 4°k nothing.
I mean, yeah, we all are. That’s how atoms work.
alternatively, yeah, mostly between his ears.
As a matter of fact…
Plese do not use Kelvin with a degree symbol. There ist no “degree Kelvin”.
Please make sure you are right before you correct someone https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/kelvin-K
Slightly off topic, but 23°C is a nice room temperature? We have our thermostats at 20°C and I find it quite warm. In the sleeping room we have 18°C and so do I have in my office, which I find quite comfortable. I hate visiting my parents, they always have 22.5°C which I find uncomfortably warm.
Well it’s all subjective after all, I’ll be happy about chilly 23°C inside when summer comes.
I can feel the difference between 71 and 73 in my house.
At 73, my kids room is uncomfortably hot. At 71, it has a perfect chill for sleeping.
What is your point? That people who use Celsius can’t feel the difference between 21.7°C and 22.8°C?
If you’re worried about your thermometer, you’ll be happy to hear that metric ones usually have finer precision than Fahrenheit ones, since they go in .5°C steps. Since +1°F means +5/9°C, you have less precision!
The point was they need that extra decimal because C isn’t good for human temperature sense.
It’s not like you are prohibited from using decimals in Fahrenheit. It’s that you don’t need 3 digits because it works better for people.
And fuck you for making me defend the most ass backwards measurement system on the planet.
It’s just an incredibly weak defense. Why is it worse for C to use an extra decimal for these differences? I can just as well argue that C is a more accurate representation, because small differences in temperature are smaller. Just like your argument, this is purely an opinion - until you can show me that not needing the extra decimal is objectively better, or until I can show you that smaller differences being represented as such is objectively better, neither of them holds any weight.
It’s the same reason we use abbreviations and contractions when speaking. A trivial simplification is still a simplification.
Why bother with Celcius at all when there is Kelvin. Even Kelvin is arbitrary. Best to use Planck normalized temperature. The scale would be absolute 0 to 100 where 0 is absolute 0 and 100 is 10^32 Kelvin.
So whenever you have to tell someone the temperature outside, you say it’s 0.000000000000000000000000015237 Planck
If 3 digits isn’t more a tiny bit more cumbersome than 2, then 32 digits is fine too.
Dude 71 is way too warm for sleeping, try 64-65 its healthier.
I don’t know if my thermostat is just wrong or if the layout of my house makes it inaccurate, but 64-65 in my house is frigid.
Plus we have a baby so 67-68 is really the lowest we could go at night I think.
But I agree, I sleep better in general when the blankets are warm and the house is cold!
Well it’s all subjective, I guess. Also depends on where you live.
I would argue it’s because of historical usage, familiarity, and resistance to change. Most countries and most people living in hot climates use Celsius.
Save yourself before it’s too late.
Do not say anything positive about Fahrenheit in this thread… the Temperature Scale Inquisition is watching closely for any dissent from the party line.
Both are equally arbitrary. You just have to know a handful of temperatures that you use in your day to day life either way.
Celsius being based on water makes it the most intuitive of the three imo.
Hum… Around here water boils at ~96°C (some labs measure that). And it seems to not freeze at 0°C anywhere on Earth, as it’s never pure water, with never an homogeneous freezing point.
It is repeatable, it’s not very arbitrary, but “intuitive” doesn’t apply in any way.
You must be at altitude. That definitely makes a difference for the boiling point, but of course water freezes at 0. Impurities that you’ll encounter in tap water, for example, will not have a large effect on freezing point.
Even if it was different by a few degrees, how does that make the scale any less intuitive?
Differences are neglegtable. 96°C is still going to kill you.
Not really, it’s just the one you’re more familiar with.
That certainly does play a role, but it also just makes more sense.
No it really doesn’t. Knowing water freezes at 0 gives you no help in day to day life vs knowing 32 or 300 for water to freeze. You still have to be cautious driving above the freezing point. Your refrigerator sits a few degrees above 0 instead of 35 or 305.
Knowing it’s 20 out only tells you useful information because you memorized what that feels like. You could just have internalized what 375 feels like.
Celsius is nice if you need to build a thermometer from scratch. That’s not something people generally do.
Celsius is more intuitive for like science or lab work but for day to day use either one is really arbitrary based on what you’re used to.
I mean, you’re 100% wrong. Fahrenheit isn’t “how people feel” arbitrarily, it’s almost literally a 0-100 scale of how hot it is outside. You need no prior knowledge to interpret a Fahrenheit measurement. Which really reflects poorly on everyone who says “Fahrenheit doesn’t make any sense” because if they were capable of any thought at all they would figure it out in 2 seconds, like everyone else. I’m a lab rat that uses Celsius all day every day, I’m just not a pretentious stuck up tool about alternate measurements just because I refuse to understand them.
I like that Fahrenheit has a narrower range for degrees. 1C is 1.8 degrees F. So, F allows you to have more precision without the use of decimals. Like, 71F feels noticeably different to me than 64F, but that is only a 3.8 degree difference in C.
But that also doesn’t matter because the granularity is meaningless if you don’t make decisions for differences between 71F and 70F
Not at those exact temperatures, but one degree matters in in grilling meat, making mash for beer, making candy, etc.
Sure, but you should be using Celsius for those things. That’s the main argument here.
It doesn’t really matter what you use. The one you memorized is the useful one.
Which was what I was going at. I sort of assumed ‘chicken at 74’ was enough of a pointer :)
I think you got mixed up here. My comment was made 2 months ago as a response to this one.
You win best username. I’m assuming you’re a Linux nerd as well. <3
You best filesystem check yourself before you filesystem wreck yourself
Where in the chicken I jam the thermometer makes several degrees difference. If you truly require that level of granularity whilst grilling, I’d wager reading a decimal figure isn’t the end of the world. Us normies can continue to bring chicken to 74 and call it a day
3 degrees celcius is easily noticeable too so that’s a bit of a moot point. If anything, 1 degree celcius is much harder to discern and therefore having an even more granular scale is unnecessary.
It is really easy to map onto human feel though. 0-100 pretty accurately maps onto our minimum and maximum realistically survivable temps, long-term, and the middle temperatures of those are the most comfortable. It’s far more round, when it comes to describing human preference and survivability, than Celsius is.
I bet a lot more people know what 0°C feels like than 0°F. One is freezing point, one is a completely arbitrary temperature which only gets called “the lowest you’ll experience” as a post hoc rationalisation of Fahrenheit. Most people will never experience anything that cold, some people experience colder.
I even bet more people know what 100°C feels like than 100°F. One is accidentally getting scalded by boiling water, the other is a completely arbitrary temperature which is quite hot but not even the hottest you’ll experience in America.
What? People experience 100 f regularly. It’s literally their body temperature.
100F is a fever; if you’re experiencing those regularly you should go see a doctor.
boiling water isnt necessarily 100c. if youre boiling water, it can be any arbitrary temperature above 100.
thats like going to a geyser pit and saying thats 100c, when it isnt. when you cook and let water come to a boil, the chef doesnt care that its exactly 100c, only that its in the state above 100.
If anything it’ll be below 100 due to altitude. For example salt water for making pasta boils still at approx 100 deg. C. It takes quite a lot of salt (way more than you would ever want to consume) to meaningfully raise the boiling point.
That’s not how boiling works. The water heats up to its boiling point where it stops and boils. While boiling the temperature does not increase, it stays exactly at the boiling point. This is called “Latent Heat”, at its boiling point water will absorb heat without increasing in temperature until it has absorbed enough for its phase to change.
There is an exception to this called superheating
No it doesn’t, unfortunately.
What makes 0F (-18C) special? How do you estimate survivability at such temperature? If I’d be out on the street naked, I would die there in a matter of minutes. At the same time, there is plenty of places where winter temperatures go -40F (-40C) and even below, yet people very much survive and live there.
Similar with 100F (38C). There are places with higher temps in the summer, up to 120F (49C) in some places, yet people survive. Still, if you’re not equipped with anything, 100F (38C) will burn you alive.
All that not to mention that 50F (10C) is actually cold, not comfortable.
Fahrenheit is only intuitive and “feeling-descriptive” because you’re used to it. From a person born in Celsius country, it’s really not less intuitive. I know I can be comfortable in my birthday suit at around 25C. Less than 20 is chilly, less than 10 - cold, less than 0 - freezing. More than 30 is hot, more than 40 is deadly.
0F is the temperature a freezer needs to be to keep food fresh.
50F is the point that you can’t survive without clothes, your body will not generate enough heat.
100F (38C) will not burn you alive. You can survive for a long time in a sauna at 200F.
100F is perfect hot tub temperature
Freezer normally operates at -4F
You can’t survive without clothes at 55-60F, either.
100F will not burn you in an instant, but the comment went into long-term survival, and good luck surviving at that.
Not sure where you got -4F from.
USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, recommends 0°F or -17.8°C
100°F in the shade isn’t extreme, and you’d be able to survive normally (With more water, everyone can use more water)
100°F is hot tub water
120°F is recommended hot tap water
140°F water will pretty much burn you instantly
Good luck surviving in 0°F long term.
Russians do it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯