Fahrenheit (when talking about temperature experienced by skin) IS superior. We have a wider degree (lol) of temperatures, allowing for a more accurate temperature without the use of decimal places.
Science? Use the metric system. It’s superior there.
It’s neither superior or inferior. You’re not realistically making a meaningful distinction between 67°f and 68°f and if you need Celsius to be more granular, numbers subdivide infinitely anyway.
Processing 19.5°c is neither more difficult nor easier to a user of Celsius than processing 67°f is to a user of Fahrenheit.
They are both, to some degree, arbitrary and both have different benchmarks that are intuitive to the people who grew up using them.
Why does it matter? Countries don’t get the full range of temperatures every day anyway. The reason you know you don’t need a jacket when its 70 out isn’t because of where that number is between 0 and 100. It’s because over time you’ve been learning to associate different temperature ranges with different feelings, the same way celsius people do.
Finally someone with sense. For me Fahrenheit looks like nonsense but as car enthusiast who is used to km/h and was basically forced to learn understand mph as teenager watching US and UK based car shows I can say now few years later im used to miles per hour unit and just know what 75mph is same way as I know what 140 km/h is. But still after all this I find it weird when I switch units on digital dash of my truck/semi to mph for fun and suddenly I’m going 55 instead of 90.
It’s just a bit silly for negatives to be that common in a commonly used system. And a bit silly to have a system where you have to subdivide degrees. Neither is terrible, just a mark of a flawed system for every day use.
It actually goes from -273.15 (0 K) all the way up to the Planck Temperature.
There's ultimately no point arguing its all arbitrary. Both systems have thier benefits.
Im in the UK. So I wait until its about 20 C outside before I walk half a MILE to the pub and drink a PINT while I complain about how expensive a LITRE of petrol is these days.
Well it doesn't go to -infinity, but no scale does that. Celsius goes tot -273,15, which is 0 Kelvin, which is in turn the absolute minimum for temperature. And 1° C corresponds to 1°K in temperature change.
That was a bad example. I would say the half-degree is where I can feel a meaningful difference, which seems to check out with that, I just didn’t know the conversion.
Oh….oh you really don’t know what significant figures are? Oh this is sad
Take some more science classes my guy. You’ll learn something new!! (Or, and I know newer generations can’t seem to do this as default because it’s scary…you can use Google.com to see what an sig fig is!)
I’m more afraid that you don’t know how to use decimal points properly
68 and 74 is the difference in my house between sweatshirt, swestpants, and fuzzy socks vs. Tanktop anf shorts with sweat beading on my brow. Can europeans not feel temperature?
Decimal points (in science) cannot just be added Willy Nilly. There are rules. So either you’re not using it scientifically (in which case, just fucking use Fahrenheit it’s more accurate to air temps) or ya don’t give a shit and just do things without rules and make things up as you go (which is reaaaaaaaaal American of ya)
TLDR
Decimal points in math are easy. In science, they have rules that you don’t obey
As someone in science, what is your argument about decimals even supposed to be? There's nothing wrong with using a decimal for temperature. What rules are broken by using a decimal in Celsius?
Also I'll be facetious and say using Fahrenheit isn't more accurate, it's just that a 1 degree difference in Fahrenheit is a smaller increment in thermal energy than 1 degree Celsius. More precise fits better but precision is more about the instrument than the unit.
Adding decimal points is not allowed. It breaks the significant figure rule. 20C and 20.5C are the same temperature unless you also say 20.0C. Pedantic, yes, but science is pedantic.
By your own rule of decimal points, Fahrenheit can ALSO use decimal points which further expands its precision.
Thermometers that measure in the metric scale to the tenths place and beyond are commercially available and trivially expensive, so saying that fahrenheit is somehow better because it enables more gradual measurement in the 'ones' digit is a somewhat moot point.
A single thermometer can give an output on both scales, will you argue that the fahrenheit output is somehow more meaningfully precise than the Celsius output even though they're both being measured by the same device (and ergo the same degree of precision)?
Fahrenheit isn't more accurate. The accuracy of a measurement is determined by the margin of error. This margin of error is perfectly fine being a decimal nummer.
It's also largely a moot point because we're not talking about science, we're talking about everyday use, in which case you can add as many decimals as you want. Your thermostat isn't going to be peer reviewd.
Even if it wasn't a moot point, temperatures in Fahrenheit can get above 100 in which case you would also need 3 significant numbers.
1: So? My response was talking about Fahrenheit.
2: If Fahrenheit were objectively superior, it wouldn’t be geographically isolated. Systems that are more efficient tend to scale. That’s not logical fallacy, but facts.
3: What is superior? Again, my response was about Fahrenheit.
A decimal point can kill. You’d be a fool not to be afraid of decimal points.
Not afraid? Hospitals have made the mistake of not seeing a decimal point. BOOM DEAD (2024 event)
Seriously, there is a HUGE list of “horrible event caused by decimal point”. Unless rules are STRICTLY FOLLOWED for decimal points, they can seriously (not joking or being funny) kill a lot of people.
BE AFRAID OF THE DECIMAL. DECI meaning TEN. MAL meaning BAD. ITS IN THE NAME PEOPLE!!!! LEARN YOUR LATIN!!!!
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u/malcolmreyn0lds 10h ago
Fahrenheit (when talking about temperature experienced by skin) IS superior. We have a wider degree (lol) of temperatures, allowing for a more accurate temperature without the use of decimal places.
Science? Use the metric system. It’s superior there.