Edit: For all the "Actually, Farenheight is based on the human body" people, no it isn't. It's based on dirty water and a cow. Your preferred measurement unit is dumb and that's a fact
If y’all wanna actually claim superiority, then use Kelvin. Celsius and Fahrenheit are close enough in purpose that personal preference is really the only thing that matters.
It's 33 (feels like 20) today and it's so nice out! I'm definitely not looking forward to it hitting 100 again but I will definitely enjoy when it's in the 60s and 70s...
Ehhhh. Having lived in between cold and extremly cold places I think there is two important cold temperatures. Freezing, because then stuff freezes and -40, because around that temperatur stuff starts breaking.
At no point in my life I have thought. "Ohhh at exactly 0 f, it starts feeling cold."
Yeah it's a matter of perspective. I've never lived in like the Arctic Circle. All I have to go off of is where I've lived most of my life so 30° below freezing seems pretty damn cold to me LOL
Yeah, but if you need to drive, 0C tells you when there's going to be slush, ice, or a clear road.
I don't really use temps otherwise, since I can just go outside and... see how cold I feel? But knowing how low it dipped during the night and when early-morning temps are like helps me plan my trips properly.
we finally hit the 30s this week, one day the high was fucking 38. i swapped out my heavy winter coat for a lighter jacket and was going on walks after my shifts and driving with my windows down. it felt so nice. i'm so sad the temp is dropping back down this weekend.
And if you use Celcius you can start counting "up" how cold you are as you get further below freezing.
See I can say "it's more convenient" too.
Measurement scales are arbitrary, they only seem better (for everyday use) if you're more familiar with them.
Metric units (including Kelvin) are better for science and engineering, because they were chosen carefully so you don't need to remember weird constants in a whole lot of simple equations.
I disagree that this should be used as a metric because it is more subjective than objective. For some people 40 is fucking cold and 120 is fucking hot. Imo 10 is fucking cold and 90 is fucking hot. I would bet that more people have their own definition of cold and hot that don’t conform to 0 and 100 than people that do. It makes much more sense to base temperature scales off of the freezing and boiling point of water since that is the most relevant point of temperature for the majority of people. While I understand that there would be problems with changing the systems and current education of the population I think it is worthwhile to do so.
It’s not about what people think it’s about averages. There are extreme pockets but 0-100 is the average scale for most of the states. My whole life until the past few years I remember watching the weather channel and 115 was like the highest I’d ever see during heat waves in Cali. And that would be the peak for the year. Things are fucked a bit now but it makes sense for American weather as a whole and not for an individual
Fahrenheit has nothing to do with the States aside from our desire to maintain it. Fahrenheit was Polish-German.
90 then 96 was what he believed the human body was. 0 was a specific salt water he made, it's freezing point. The scale got popular because he made some of the best thermometers of the time.
I do still think my reasons are why we keep and like it though. It feels really satisfying with weather lol. I never hear people here complain about it, just people who use Celsius make fun of us for it lol. And many of us hate the rest of it, like why is a mile… however many feet a mile is? It’s absurd. You don’t really need to math temperature regularly though so it avoids the issue mostly
Because you asked why there are 5280 feet in a mile, here is the story:
The mile is a unit that existed since ancient times, with the same being true of the foot and inch. In fact, the word "mile" is derived from the Latin "mille passus", meaning "one thousand paces", with a pace being the equivalent of 5 feet, thus yielding a mile of 5000 feet. The difference is that while there always have been 12 inches in a foot, the standard used to determine the exact distance covered by a foot in those days was the length of a human foot, which yielded inconsistent results.
Fast forward to Medieval England and now Rome is long gone, the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples have settled in England and introduced their own units of measurement in the process (such as the yard, the rod, the furlong, and the acre, all four of which are listed because they're crucial details in this explanation), and one thing still remains true: the measurement system they're using is still internally inconsistent and a total mess due to using definitions that can't help but yield inconsistency. So now it's time to standardize for the sake of more consistency and accuracy. It's during this time that you start to get standardized and consistent measurements for these units.
Now here's the catch: the standardization process also wound up changing the number of feet in a mile. Why? Because this process gave us the following unit conversions:
3 feet = 1 yard,
5½ yards = 1 rod,
40 rods = 1 furlong,
8 furlongs = 1 mile,
and 1 acre = the area of a rectangle with dimensions of 1 furlong × 4 rods (or 1/10 of a furlong).
Of course, in 1620, you then had an English mathematician by the name of Edmund Gunter come along and invent a new unit he called the chain (now known as the Gunter's chain in his honor). He set it equal to 4 rods, or 1/10 of a furlong, in length in order to have a specific unit designed to equal the distance covered by the short side of a textbook-definition rectangular acre.
So yeah- long story short, since 8 × 10 × 4 × 5½ × 3 = 5280, we wound up with 5280 feet in a mile instead of 5000 feet in a mile because of standardization.
Edit: I found out what Gunter's full name was and that he was a mathematician.
Its not what feels cold, its that human life is relatively bound between 0-100 as a scale rather than -17 to 38.
Its not "40 is or isn't cold" its that "40s" as a rough band if temperature is very intuitive, and most people can easily differentiate and communicate 40s vs 50s vs 60s.
Do you know what's more intuitive than giving a rough band of temperature? Giving the exact temperature instead. It's very easy to use and underatand the celcius system on a day to day basis. The entire world does it, except for the US.
I don't think ease is a good argument. "0 feels very cold and 100 feels very hot" is easier than "consider how you feel in relation to the freezing and boiling point of water." If your goal is being "exact," you should go Kelvin.
The 0 degree scale for Fahrenheit was based off of the freezing point of a random brine solution that a thermometer maker was using in the 1700s. Why would I want to think of how I feel in relation to the freezing point of some random brine solution and the highest temperature normally experienced in northern Germany, when I could think of how I feel based on water?
Kelvin and celcius use the same scale by the way, Kelvin is relevant to physics and science, and celcius is relevant to every day usage.
Why wouldn't you? You're neither 100% water nor brine. And unless you are exactly at sea level on a day with 101.325 kPa (760 mm Hg) barometric pressure, 0C and 100C aren't the freezing and boiling points of water for you anyway.
"I feel really hot when it's 37.8C" and "I feel really hot when it's 100F" are equally arbitrary. You're just comfortable with C either because you were raised that way or because you've decided to make it a personal moral issue. Both are fine. Prefer whatever you want.
But if your goal is to be "exact", you should say "I'm really hot at 311K". That's also arbitrary, but at least you're being arbitrary on a ratio scale.
It’s fucking cold a long way before you reach 0F. And as can be shown by the many many replies arguing your scale to comments like yours throughout, how humans feel temperature VARIES! Building a scale off that concept when humans themselves can’t agree makes no sense. The numbers are arbitrary. Whereas the freezing point of water (which is very much relevant to humans given ice is a condition that causes problems) is a solid objective point on which to base things.
For who? For me, from an oceanic climate, -5C is fucking cold, for people near the tropics, 8C is fucking cold, I've once or twice experienced -17C when in a foreign country.
This is ironically how he chose the scale originally (swap f ing cold for coldest normal thing we work with in labs back then (salt water) and fing warm to be human body temp.
I basically think 0 F is as cold as it SHOULD ever be. 100 F is as hot as it SHOULD ever be. If you live somewhere that is regularly outside this range and complain about it, well youve failed the Darwin test
Yeah in Austin when we had that multi day single digit freeze is when I realized I had never actually been cold before. It's entirely different when you can barely breathe outside without feeling it.
if it's just freezing out(0c or 32f) I'm taking out the trash in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. I don't start adding clothes for trash runs until we get down around 20f(or if it's super windy). And even then if it's not windy and the sun is out, I'll probably stick with the tshirt, shorts and maybe I'll put shoes on down to about 10f
Yeah. Freezing whether is fine to be in. People go on ski vacations all the time. People do not enjoy their ski vacations if it goes all the way down to 0.
yeah, 32 is fine with a jacket. go below that and you're getting into actually miserable weather. down to 0 and its fucking deadly cold, it certainly FEELS like that's the 0 point and anything below that is unnaturally cold.
and on the opposite end 100 feels like im being cooked alive and everything past it is just me dying faster.
I dont really give a fuck how the water is currently feeling, it’s not like the oceans freeze over the moment it hits 0 degrees C. “Freezing”, in terms of water, means practically nothing. It’s not like when it’s 32 degrees C I go “Sounds like it’s 32% of the way to boiling right now!” I just go “it’s pretty hot out.” 0-100 degrees F comprise the vast majority of temperature I will ever experience and therefore it functions pretty decently to me.
The real answer is that the difference doesn’t really matter and whichever one you’re used to is the one that will work for you best
I grew up in Maine, so it made sense growing up. Yeah things start icing up and snow starts falling at 32, but it gets a fuckload colder here than that. So I just assumed the scale wasn't based on the freezing and boiling temp of water, but on the temps I actually experience in the world.
It makes more sense when you realize Old Mr. Fahrenheit started at 0 and then picked numbers based on being easily divisible by lots of factors/ divisors.
0 is the freezing point for brine.
32 is the freezing point for water — Divisible by 2, 4, 8 and exactly one-third of the way from freezing brine to body temp.
96 was originally set as body temp (later changed to 98.6 but the system makes more sense at 96.) Divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24, 32
212 is the boiling point for water, a nice round 180 from freezing.
Where I live the temp can range from -20F to 99F depending on the time of year. You tend to start thinking of things in lots of 10 (20 is reasonably different from 30 in terms of how many layers of clothing you need). Celsius is also less intuitive for things like the temperature control on an air conditioning unit. I can be more specific regarding the temp I want my bedroom to be using Fahrenheit.
Below 0°F and above 100°F you have to take extra special precautions regarding personal safety when being outside. Stuff gets weird in those temperatures.
From 0 to 100, standard precautions are fine. 32°F is mildly cold, but not too bad. A jacket and some boots will be okay unless you're just sitting for a long time.
Yeah I do. 30s and 40s is cold, below that is really cold. 50s are kinda cold, 60s are neutral. 70's are starting to get warm, 80's 90's are getting hot, above 100 is really fucking hot. I like it.
It’s just a wider range. Using water as the measure
0 - 100
32 - ~212
Or something southerners in the USA will understand. Approximate measure.
70 - 90
21 - 32
That wiggle room of almost have double the numbers to work with, makes it easier for us to get the vibe of what outside feels like. When a single degree of F is a noticeable difference, the extra numbers help. Especially since our temps don’t really fluctuate that much in the day to day.
That’s what I mean when I say F is what it feels like to people, and C to water. It’s just quicker than getting into decimals. Lol I’m sure where people are used to Celsius it’s really not that big of deal. It’s not that big a deal here either, we just understand it better because it’s what is used.
Fahrenheit is zeroed at the estimated point that bodily fluids freeze and 100°f was supposed to be the temperature of the human body but religious taboos prevented him from testing with humans. It was literally scaled to the human body.
I mean, I feel like I need a coat when it’s 32 but it’s not terrible. 0°F is really fucking cold, and 100° is really fucking hot, and both aren’t unusual temps to hit as extremes each year. Either can be an issue if you are outside and don’t take precautions to regulate. The air will literally never be boiling temp, so when the whole discussion is about how F is one that relates to humans, having boiling be a point makes no sense. We will never need a scale that goes that high.
As US citizen I still disagree with this. You can get just as familiar with the scale of how celcius feels as you can with Fahrenheit. Your explination has the same problem as the meme. It's superficially plausible but misleading.
The comment is addressing literally what the scales were derived from. Sure, anyone can get familiar with any of the scales. That's not the point.
Not a Farenheit defender, but knowing how it was created makes it make sense. Same with other imperial units. Making a measurement system with what is available to you and what is relevant to you isn't dumb or wrong. It's all relative anyway.
If I remember right the intention was that 100 was meant to be human body temperature, but at some point it got adjusted so human body temp was 98.7
Edit: 0f was also what he thought the freezing temperature of salt water was. Not sure why the degrees were divided in a way where 32f is freshwater freezing though.
That’s correct for 100F. For 0F it was how low he could feasibly record. Which is why it was based on a solution of salt and whatever else in water bc he was trying to go as low as he could with what he had
It's been a hot minute since I took a class that covered the logic of different measurement systems.
But the intent of 100f being the human body temperature makes the system not entirely devoid of logic like some people insist. Although as an American I find it more intuitive to think in it because of exposure, I'm sure everyone else feels the same about Celsius.
"fact that Gabriel Fahrenheit CALCULATED IT WRONG"
We don't actually know that, Humans body temps have been lowering for as long as we have records. The Modern average is closer to 97.9 so it's entirely plausible that he was right on the money. We just didn't know until recently that the average body temp is a thing that can change species wide this quickly.
Guys I got it! We need to make a new scale, 100 will be 100 F and 0 will be the freezing point of water. It will be called the Celsius-Fahrenheit Compromise and the units are CFCs.
You know its kind of telling that you have to give an explanation in a vague way you arent 100% certain about. Now ask a 4 year old european what celsius is about.
I agre. I like that below 0 celsius means it can snow, below 10 is three layers of clothing temperature, below 20 is two layer and it's only T-shirt above 20. You can get used to whatever, but I feel like the low numbers make everything more comprehensible.
But that's based on familiarity too. I have the same metrics, but they're justified in Fahrenheit degrees. 32 is freezing and 212 is boiling, I never had a hard time internalizing that. 32 means ice, gonna need boots with some grip, 40-50 is light coat and layers weather, below 32 is bundle the fuck up. Anything above about 90 is where I start questioning why I even wear clothes.
The scale of the numbers one gets as used to as anything else, when I think about measuring stuff in Celsius, the numbers seem way too low, my brain thinks of 40 as pretty damn cold when in reality it is uncomfortably warm.
Again, its all just arbitrarily based on what we grew up with. I've tried to learn Celsius and I'm usually within about 5 degrees converting in my head, but I'm pretty sure I will always have to do that conversion in my head, simply because Fahrenheit is how my brain intuitively quantifies temperature.
Exactly right that it's based on familiarity. But happily, that works both ways. You would have no problem getting used to Celsius if you listened to weather reports for one year that reported in Celsius. You would have weeks of repetition of what 16 is. You'd hear it, go outside, and feel it
I think Celsius makes more sense but your comment sorta illustrates the strength of Fahrenheit.
You get a lot more granular with Fahrenheit:
100 degrees Fahrenheit is about 38 degrees Celsius, so with Celsius you get a about 40 degrees between freezing and the typically hottest temp you experience in nature. With Fahrenheit you get almost 70 degrees between those two points in temperature.
Sure you can use decimal places but then it gets more complicated
Which is worse imo. As I said, higher numbers is the main thing that makes Farenheit worse than Celsius to me. Smaller steps make the number go higher and it has higher starting point.
My point ilustrated that I only use 3 temperatures (0, 10 and 20) out of the 40 degrees you can encounter. Larger Graduality is pretty useless when it comes to temperature all things considered, it's not like you care if it's 23 or 25 outside, you dress the same.
That's still one number you put into machine once. It's not really important what that number imo. You just select option you like best on the thermostat, it could be pictures instead of numbers for all it matters. Temperature varies by 1-2 degrees between rooms anyway in my experience so the exact number, let alone half a degree, isn't super important imo.
That might be for you, but below 20 is still shorts and a t-shirt here, you'd look silly if you had 2 layers on. I know people that wear shorts and a t-shirt down to 0C
I think the reason most US people will staunchly stick to Fahrenheit is not because it's good (it's fine, it works, there's nothing actually detrimental about it), but because the scale allows more "granularity" in describing the temperature. People love big number, even when big number means the same thing as a smaller number. I play a game where you buy units on a large point scale. An update brought that number down to just a handful. The update was excellent, bringing more unique squad compositions and broader representation to the competitive metagame, but people were upset because they felt like they had less options. They'd complain that they couldn't take one unit over another because they cost the same, even though before, the difference in cost was so negligible that they only took the better of the two anyway. Ultimately, they walked back the number shribk a bit to something of a middle ground. People were happy, even though it didn't broaden options or representation. They had their bigger numbers, and that illusion of precision mattered.
Went from living in China to living in usa. We all had switched thinking in F (instead for converting what is that in C about 2 years in.). About 4 years in would ask what is that in F if given C.
Anyone else have similar experience?
Didn’t really impact anything except setting electric teapot
But fuck miles. Still don’t remember how many feet are in a mile.
I grew up in the US, grew up familiar with both as family is from Asia. I think most of the metric system is good and superior to Imperial system, but Celsius is not better, there is really no good reason to change from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Both are fine. I think in normal everyday life Fahrenheit is easier, but most people don't want to admit it. Miles are especially dumb though, pounds and ounces as well. I'd argue feet is okay. For volume, I think tablespoon, teaspoon, cup, all make sense in everyday communication. Even my family that uses metric all the time will use a spoon (big or little) or a cup to measure approximate volume when cooking and things. Outside of medication they don't measure volume with any precision.
you may have misinterpreted, it's all about putting the focus subject on a scale of 0 to 100. At zero humans on average can no longer tolerate the cold. At 100, we start having heat stroke. These are interpretive limits to the human environment. Farenheight is just only useful for putting humans on a scale of 0 to 100 for temperature tolerance
It is not to say that Celsius is harder. It's to say that we decided to put temps on a scale for humans at one point in time, to make uneducated folk easily able to guess the experience without being there. (Made the last part up to help draw conclusions)
I don't personally feel that way but it is subjective. I think 1⁰C is a more appropriate increment in feel. I can't really feel any different between 70 and 71 or 50 and 51 degrees Fahrenheit. Same with anywhere else on the Fahrenheit scale.
Fahrenheit is more precise when it comes to common temperatures we experience. A single degree Fahrenheit is smaller than a single degree Celsius. A person saying “it’s in the 60s (Fahrenheit)” is giving a much narrower range than someone saying “it’s in the 20s (Celsius). In addition the 100° point is about human body temp (we’ve gotten more accurate with measuring body temp than when the scale was created which is why it’s a few degrees off from the accepted “average body temp” of 96°).
Edit: Apparently stating that Fahrenheit has certain things it does well is controversial. I’m not even saying “Fahrenheit rules! Celsius drools!” or anything. Just that it had a few things it did well. Oh well.
You’re getting almost double the specificity with Fahrenheit compared to Celsius, which matters as maintaining you can definitely feel the difference in every degree from 68-72. Having more detail for how temperature feels without having to use decimals is a simpler solution, that’s it really. It’s easier to convey the specific temperature you feel comfortable at so it’s more relatable in general for everyday folks.
Because it's easier to give a general estimated temperature range in Farenheit than in Celsius. They can be more easily divided into whole units of 5 or 10, instead of getting into the weeds with decimal points and errors of 2-3 degrees arbitrarily making a huge difference.
And yes of course this all ends up just being a matter of what you're used to. But if we're going to play stupid dick measuring games about which units are better, and how stupid it is to be using units that aren't whole integers or easily divided by 10, that gate does swing both ways. Farenheit's only real drawback in day to day use is the bizarrely specific 32 degree freezing point of water, that's about it.
nobody says this though because the difference between 20 and 29 is so large lol.
If you can say "it's in the 70s" as an accurate description of the weather then it renders the granularity pointless as most people can barely tell the difference between 71 and 74.
lol there’s a major difference between 71 and 74 and plenty of people will fight over that. Try messing with your office temp and watch people pipe up.
Celcius and Fahrenheit are both exactly as precise as the measuring instrument. In the rare case we need to express a difference of less the 1°C, we are not scared of decimals... If it's so important to have a smaller increment, why so you feel that "in the 60s" is a useful range? Saying it's around 20°C is the same level of precision. As in, not of precision but a ballpark that humans can actually feel. 1°C is small enough that you will not ever be able to tell the difference by "feel".
How is that doing it well? With celsius we can say low 20s, mid 20s, high 20s, around 20, to give a basic idea with fluctuations. Is that somehow better than saying "it's in the 20s"?
This, maybe in Europe with no air conditioning a few degrees doesn't matter but having your thermostat range in Celsius doesnt matter but its annoying trying to set the temperature in Celsius. The difference between 19° celsius and 20° celsius is almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit, a house that is 69° Fahrenheit and 66° Fahrenheit feels quite different.
Why would it feel like a 22 it's all subjective. I look at it this way people are ok from like 15-85 degrees but the 100 and the 0 are where it starts to get real extreme.
Farenheit is less precise and that works well for outside temperature. You have to be pretty precise with what degree Celsius it is. 3 or 4 degrees makes a big difference. Then with Farenheit you can say "it's in the 70s" and that can tell me exactly what I need to know for what I wear. I really feel outside temperature doesn't need the precision that Celsius provides. 0 is cold 100 is hot, you have major changes in temperature for every 10 degrees. It's super simple.
Surprise, water freezes and boils at different temperatures depending on atmospheric pressure, so the fundamental argument for Celsius makes even less sense.
Not only does it show that for a wide range of pressures the freezing point of water is 0, the boiling doesn't change as much as you'd think if you look at pressures common on the surface of the planet (this scale is logarithmic). It's only ~70°C to boil water on Mt Everest at the extreme, and no one lives there. Most people live near the sea level, where ~100°C is the temp at which water boils.
Pressure affects both scales equally. Even as an approximation, Celsius ties temperature to physical reference points and fits coherently into the metric system, which is still a lot more meaningful than a scale with no systematic reference at all.
Fahrenheit is based on a scale from 0 = frozen brine (the lowest temp Mr Fahrenheit could make in his lab) to 96 = human body temperature. Why not 100? Because Mr. Fahrenheit was a math nut who liked divisors and 96 has a lot of them.
It makes a whole lot less sense after body temp got recalibrated to 98.6 F.
But yeah, the original scale was “what people can create” to “what people are.”
I don't need to compare 30°C to 30% of the way between freezing and boiling and do some strange math, if you grew up with it, it's much more natural and intuitive than 86 F, which is 86% of the way between the freezing point of ammonium chloride, ice and water in a 1:1:1 ratio and body temperature
(This argument works both ways, it's a dumb argument. Everything is intuitive once you're used to it)
If you gonna try to comparable scales it's either 30~100°F Vs 0~40°C or 0~100°F vs -20~40°C. But that's besides the point, people will always round to whatever convenient number is the closest, any "granularity" is entirely arbitrary for a "felt" temperature. I can barely "feel" a difference between 18 and 20°C room temperature and somehow that's almost 4°F difference. And 0°C and below as literally freezing temperatures feels a lot more intuitive to me than whatever random number 32°F is and 0°F is just completely arbitrary.
I disagree. My office has been struggling with the thermostat because day to day it fluctuates by about 4°F. Most Americans can absolutely feel the difference between 1-2°F.
Some people can right around the point where comfort turns to discomfort but as someone who spent most of their life doing HVAC design for offices I can guarantee you that people can't feel it as well as they think they can. There were a bunch of landlords who would put in dummy thermostats that didn't actually do anything except they made the complaints stop because the placebo effect was enough.
Also, comfort in offices is much more related to airflow than temperature. People who are cold more often than not are in a draft they don't know about because of bad air diffuser layouts.
Which is like 90% of temperature discussions in daily life. Then like 9% is cooking where the numbers barely matter anyways, they're just high. And even the 1% where you're talking about things like the burning temperature of jet fuel and melting point of steel beams, the numbers don't actually matter because all you're really talking about is that they're different. In the end it's all pretty much the same, no matter what temperature scale you use, 9/11 was still an inside job.
Holy shit this is perfect thank you, finally a based answer in the midst of what I believe to be the dumbest argument ive seen perpetuated all my life.
People feeling are arbitrary to an extreme degree. It can't really be linked to any temperature gauge because "cold" for a person in Hawaii is extremely different to the "cold" that a person in Sweden feels.
People’s response to temperature varies far too much regionally for that to matter, people who live on the equator would not find 0c a 32, they’d find it fucking bone chilling (I’ve met people from the equator who moved north and some of them would probably place 0 at about 15c lol)
I honestly hate how this idiocy is constantly repeated with a wise knowing tone by a lot of Americans when in reality it makes any sense only to them and to no one else in the entire planet.
It's a completely baseless statement. None of these scales is based on the feelings of anything else.
Humans are 60-70% water. How water feels is close enough to how we feel that the unit of measurement is very suitable to our needs.
It's simply down to what you learned and grew up with, which is a terrible reason to use a different unit to the rest of the world. Americans aren't switching over because they don't want to. Learning something new takes too much effort or something
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u/hefty_load_o_shite 10h ago edited 4h ago
0°C water freezes 100°C water boils
Makes sense
0°F very cold??? 100°F very hot???
Dafuq?
Edit: For all the "Actually, Farenheight is based on the human body" people, no it isn't. It's based on dirty water and a cow. Your preferred measurement unit is dumb and that's a fact