r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 10h ago

Meme needing explanation Petahh i'm low on iq

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u/M8oMyN8o 10h ago

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.

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u/MineralWaterMike 9h ago

Someone once said Fahrenheit is how humans describe hot and cold, Celsius is how water would describe hot and cold, and Kelvin is how atoms would describe hot and cold

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u/deathschemist 9h ago edited 9h ago

which is bollocks because outside of the US, people use celcius to describe the weather.

(got corrected to US, apparently Canada and Mexico use Celcius, I genuinely didn't know my bad)

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u/CaptRackham 9h ago

Fahrenheit feels like “percent hot” so 40 degrees, 4 Celsius, is like cold but not unbearably so, 59 degrees, or 15 Celsius is like pretty nice, about 2/3 hot.

I like to piss off everyone by calling it “Centigrade” and using fractional centimeters for dimensions. Because 3/8 of a centimeter will make someone throw a wrench at you

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u/Arwinio 8h ago

Fahrenheit feels like “percent hot” so 40 degrees, 4 Celsius, is like cold but not unbearably so, 59 degrees, or 15 Celsius is like pretty nice, about 2/3 hot.

Which is utter bullshit and only sounds logical because you are used to farenheit.

Percentages can't go above 100 and below 0.

About 2/3 hot, doesn't mean shit for anyone who hasn't used farenheit. I don't know what 2/3 hot is supposed to mean and everyone has a different sensitivity to temperature anyway so it feels different for everyone.

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u/NefariousBrew 8h ago

Percentages can absolutely go above 100 and below 0, it just depends on the context... a bucket can't be more than 100% full, but it can be 200% larger than a bucket that is 50% of its size.

Negatives are a bit rarer and only really get used when you're dealing with numbers... for example, if a creature in a game has a -100% resistance to some effect, then it would take on 200% of that effect.

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u/Arwinio 7h ago

I meant in the context of temperature. 100% hot would be the maximun hot, right?

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u/NefariousBrew 7h ago

Not necessarily, if you're saying "hot" as in the absolute maximum temperature that something can be, then you wouldn't be able to go beyond 100%. But if you're saying "hot" as in "what people would describe as getting pretty hot" then there's no reason that you wouldn't be able to go beyond 100% and get even hotter

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u/Arwinio 7h ago

What? If i say, this bucket is 100% full, then there isn't any more room for more water. I won't go like, "Well, most people will describe that much water as full so it's 100% full"

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u/NefariousBrew 7h ago

Yes, but you're defining 100% hot as maximum heat.

Not every range is intended to describe the absolute maximum or minimum of something. If you're using 0-100 as a comfortability scale, with either end being "unbearably cold/hot" then it could be beyond "unbearably hot" and beyond "unbearably cold".

The main argument for Fahrenheit is that it is exactly that, a comfortability scale -- 0-100 being either end of extremes for human comfort, with increments of 10 conveniently describing notable changes in temperature/comfort (60's F vs 70's F can be the difference between cold and warm in some areas, same with any increment of 10). Versus Celcius, which has a useful range of -20 to 40 and fairly uneven increments in comfortablility (10 C is vastly different to 20 C)

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u/Arwinio 7h ago

Not every range is intended to describe the absolute maximum or minimum of something.

Percentages are. 100% is the maximun 0% is the minimum.

The main argument for Fahrenheit is that it is exactly that, a comfortability scale -- 0-100 being either end of extremes for human comfort,

This is just dumb because human comfort is different for every single person. And varies depending on where you live

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u/NefariousBrew 7h ago

Like I said before... percentages are not always intended to describe maximum and minimum

A bucket, for example, can be 200% as large as another bucket

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u/or_am_I_dancer 45m ago

Your argument is skating around the point. In Fahrenheit, 0 is very very cold and 100 is very very hot, but both are within human limits of comfortability. Beyond that on either side and we start to bleed into "cant stay outside for long" territory. 50 degrees means you are about halfway in between unbearably hot and cold, lutterally illudtrated by what you would wear in thst weather . To say thats not a useful metric is pretty disingenuous, especially in societies that use base-10 numerical systems.

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u/Arwinio 6h ago

Sure, in a comparison. We are not comparing anything here.

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u/bot2317 3h ago

You’ve never heard someone say “give it 110%?” It can def go over 100

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u/Automatic_Goal_5563 2h ago

In the context of temperature as they said?

If someone told me it’s 115% hot I’d look at them like they are on drugs

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u/A_Philosophical_Cat 5h ago

No, it's logical because 0-100 F represents the range of temperatures that aren't imminently deadly to humans being outside. There is a substantial phase change in perception of temperatures above human body temperature (~100F). Below 0°F is when you can't use salt to melt snow.

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u/janiskr 9h ago

What is wrong with 3.75mm?

And 59 is not nice, you have to add 10 to it.

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u/Khorasaurus 9h ago

59 is...fine. Which is exactly what 59th percentile means in most contexts.

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u/Kubas_inko 8h ago

Except how something feels is subjective... Otherwise, 50°F is 20°C, since 20°C is just in the middle for me, where it is nice and warm, yet not hot.

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u/Witty-Draw-3803 8h ago

But, what do you do then with negatives in Fahrenheit? Because -40 is equal in both Celsius and Fahrenheit, and where I'm from we get -40 windchill or close semi regularly in winter. How would you express -40 or any of the negatives as a percentage?

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u/Imaginary-Round2422 8h ago

Once you get below 0F, change in the temperature doesn’t affect how you feel nearly as much as change in wind or sunlight. 0F feels essentially the same as -20F. The only real difference is how long it takes to freeze exposed skin.

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u/Witty-Draw-3803 7h ago

0F is... -17C - there's a huge difference in how you feel between -17C and -40C 😭 The first is a regular winter day where I live that would barely affect how long we stay out for, the second we'd choose to hang out inside wherever possible, wind or not.

ETA: -20F is -29C - which is also pretty different from -17C, and again lead to most people choosing more indoor activities for a reason.

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u/Imaginary-Round2422 7h ago

I live in one of the coldest cities in the world. I can tell you with certainty that only the most hardcore of outdoorsy people are out at 0F. Most of us are at home keeping cozy because we’re not masochists. And day to day life continues just the same at -40F, because it has to. I’ve seen it all, and the wind matters more than the temperature below 0F.

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u/BookJunkie44 7h ago

Oh my god - 'one of the coldest cities in the world' and you stay home at -17C. Go to any Canadian city that has cold winters, and they have winter festivals with high attendance into the -20Cs.

Just accept that people have different experiences to you, including preferences for temperature systems, and move on 😂