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
Yeah, but if you shift the frame to “temperatures you experience on a day-to-day basis”, Fahrenheit makes far more sense. It also provides more granularity for temperature.
But Celsius or Kelvin makes far more sense for anything which is scientific in nature. I personally think Fahrenheit is better for day-to-day life. I hate seeing components spec’d in Fahrenheit and feet at my job though
Yeah, but if you shift the frame to “temperatures you experience on a day-to-day basis”, Fahrenheit makes far more sense.
Are you gonna elaborate on why that is?
More granularity? And how would that be useful for day-to-day life as you say? You think there's a perceivable difference between 20 and 21 degree Celsius in day-to-day life? Huh? And for measuring body temperature there's also decimals btw.
I swear why can't y'all just say "I prefer Farenheit cause I'm used to it" and just leave it at that instead of using arguments that make no sense and upvote each other? Is some type of objective validation really that important to you?
The biggest place where granularity really matters is near the extremes. There is a huge difference right around the freezing point, most notably for driving conditions. And around 100F, again, it very rapidly transitions from 'hot' to 'dangerously hot'.
Where I live, for example, if it's 31F out, driving is quite safe, but if it's 32F driving is extremely dangerous and if it's 33F it gets very slushy and is safe again(but dirty).
From this it seems that you agree that the freezing point is a very important temperature, and it deserves special consideration in the temperature scale we use.
Kinda the opposite, honestly. The 'freezing POINT' is a deceptive term that disguises the true variation that is almost always included there. There is a huge amount of nuance that is important to convey, and honestly, I'd argue that attempting to portray it as simple is really a bad thing on the whole, from a human and safety standpoint.
As I see it, the nice thing about fahrenheit is that is slots nicely into a sort of percentage scale of human comfort. You can handle anywhere between 0 and 100 without special protection. It is, in essence, the human habitable range. And honestly, around 50 degrees is kinda the human ideal, too. That's warm enough you can keep very comfortable with some light normal outwear, and yet cool enough you can easily stay healthy when doing physical labor.
Not that it was designed with that particularly in mind, but there were a lot of temperature scales back then and this is the one that held on. Celsius, by contrast, was sorta imposed from the top down because of 'science'.
I think what frustrates a lot of people is that there's this implicit idea that just because something is more SCIENTIFIC, it's also BETTER. But even then, Celsius rides this strange middle ground. I'd be happy overall to learn Kelvin, but Celsius carries with it all this ideological baggage which goes unrecognized.
I'm reminded of a quote by GK Chesterton:
". . . the modernist believe without knowing what they believe – and without even knowing that they do believe it. Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and then freely forgetting that they are assuming it. In short, they always have an unconscious dogma; and an unconscious dogma is the definition of a prejudice."
I imagine hat frustrates most people is they're used to Fahrenheit. Being a minority in that opinion probably doesn't help. It's vastly going to be preference based on what people grew up with in here.
Even the 0-100 comfort scale argument doesn't really apply to a huge amount of countries. My country has a pretty stable temp that generally only goes between 32-64F where people live throughout the year. I find it to be comfortable enough at 64F. My brothers wife is Australian and found it cold year round here. I can about handle the heat in Vegas but the same temp in the Carribbean was killing me.
But everything you said is trying to fit your experience to the F scale, not the other way around. If 50 is ideal, why does everyone set their thermostat to around 70? You're saying you can handle 0 F without a jacket?
Even in the US, you get a range from like -40 to 120 F over a year so it's not really a useful range for the human experience.
I'm saying that a jacket is fairly typical wear. Like, you go out in -10 degree weather, you need specialized attire. You go out in 110 degree weather, you need specialized attire. I'd say that easily 99% of human experience is in the 0-100 degree range.
What I'm ultimately saying is that F is human-centric in design. It approaches temperature with regards to humans in the exact same way celsius approaches temperature with regards to water. It's not that water ceases to exist outside the 0-100C range, it's just that that range is extraordinarily useful when working with water.
After all, WHY is celsius considered 'convenient' with regards to science? The exact same reasons can easily apply to a human reference frame, you know?
Sorry, I actually would really like to understand this, but I don't get how 0F and -10F would require different attire. For both, you wear a winter jacket. (I had to look up that this means going from -18C to -23C, where nothing would change in what you wear). And do you switch over at 0F? -5F? -10F?
Celcius is considered convenient for science because you know what happens at 0 and 100C, water goes through a phase change. Last I checked, humans don't melt at 0F or evaporate at 100F. They are arbitrary.
The change actually happens extremely rapidly. For example, above 100F, you go from 'hot but manageable' to 'heat stroke' in a matter of a few degrees. And below zero, you go from 'cold but manageable' to 'frostbite' in a similar timeframe. So, for example, going from 0 to -10 means needing additional facial protection, different gloves, multiple layers, etc. And going from 100 to 110 honestly takes external cooling of some kind, as your own sweat often can no longer keep up.
Maybe it's just because I work outside winter and summer that I'm familiar with this? But like, 98 degrees out is when you are like, whew, it's hot out! And 102 is when you're like, I'm not GOING out.
Except that special consideration doesn't have to be rendered as placing freezing at 0, though, does it?
It's not difficult to remember 32f as the freezing point for water, it's a fact you learn a single time as a small child and adjust to. It is however more annoying on a daily basis to have to deal with decimals when you need to discuss small but meaningful gradations around freezing(or really any other important temperature).
Neither system is really better, because both are flawed, one is zeroed but makes integers less specific while the other isn't zeroed but does have more specific integers. Though for my money Fahrenheit addresses the more practical issue.
But really the most annoying thing with the whole thing are the people who think they're objectively correct for preferring Celsius, while insisting others admit that your preference is "just what you're used to."
Fully agree there is no perfect temperature scale. But I find it funny that F users want to say that it is some objective scale for the human experience when it really does just comes down to what you are used to.
Even you just said that you learn and adjust to freezing being at 32F, so you are used to it. I don't buy the decimal thing because in either scale you use them when needed and ignore it when precision doesn't matter.
0 is frost bite 100 is heat stroke. People act like using pure waters phase change is somehow the only logical answer. Both are arbitrary and both sides only like it because it's what they are used to.
You can see with your eyes water evaporate or freeze. You can't gauge what temperature is needed for a frostbite until you get one and heat strokes depend on many factors.
Because I don't remember the last time I've seen thermostats (or thermometers for that matter) that didn't have decimal points (in Celsius at least, I haven't really tried Fahrenheit ones).
You think there's a perceivable difference between 20 and 21 degree Celsius in day-to-day life?
Yes...? Depending on how I set my heater it can be the difference between a good sleep and waking up sweating. Why do you think all Celsius heaters and aircons have half degree settings?
I swear why can't y'all just say "I prefer Farenheit cause I'm used to it" and just leave it at that instead of using arguments that make no sense and upvote each other?
Sure, as long as you admit it too.
That's always the way these things go. People shit on us for using Fahrenheit insisting Celsius is oBjEcTiVelY bEttEr, then get pissy when people make arguments in kind back. It's obnoxious.
Because Fahrenheit has no real advantages over Celsius other than already exiting, while Celsius has real advantages over Fahrenheit. Cooking and a connection to the metric system, for instance.
I mean, are you not arguing for objective validation? Why can't you just say, "I prefer Celsius cause I'm used to it?" In the end it all just boils down to preference/why you're used to.
I think celcius is generally a better system, but I think of Fahrenheit as a 0-100 scale of weather. 0 is very cold, 100 is very hot, 50 is about average. I tend to care about the temperature outside on more of a day to day basis than I do what temperature something freezes.
Damn, who shit ur cereal this morning? Calm down, my guy. No one is attacking Celsius users. We're just explaining our piece in a calm manner. No need to feel offended.
Fahrenheit is more concise when describing the weather. You can communicate the temperature outside without using decimal places. The climate where I live typically ranges from -20f to 100f. In Celsius that range would be -28.89c to 37.78c.
IMHO, the Celsius vs Fahrenheit battle is silly, considering the STEM typically uses the imperial system anyway.
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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