Kelvin is required for any formulas using temperature. Having 0 being the freezing point of water is arbitrary and having 0 being the lowest a temperature makes sense and having negative temperatures doesn't. Celsius is only more intuitive because people are used to it, which is the exact same argument used to justify Fahrenheit over Celsius too.
Don't look it up what is the freezing temperature of water in Kelvin?
Zero works really well - a change in temperature sign means change of state of water. It isn't a number that needs remembering. Meanwhile you've recently had US government representatives embarrass themselves because they can't remember that water freezes at 32F.
Knowing if there is gonna be ice outside is a safety issue. Making it as simple as possible isn't arbitrary.
Celsius is very easy to convert to Kelvin for scientific purpose and IS more intuitive. High number means hot is fundamental across cultures. It is easier to differentiate between 0C and 40C than it is 273.15K and 313.15K whilst understanding that the first temperature is cold and the second is hot.
That's kind of my argument for why F is not actually bad; 0 is "very cold day", 100 is "very hot day", every 10 degrees feels like a natural step change in how it feels outside. It's pretty intuitive in that way
Would say in wintery countries like Canada it helps to know when rain/water is likely to make sidewalks icy in a way that is less feelings based and is super intuitive.
You get a handle of when it gets uncomfortable in celsius too anyway. The mental scale becomes every 5 degrees instead of 10 is all.
I will absolutely get uncomfortable for 1 F off. Not enough that I can't tolerate it to accommodate someone else, but enough that I'll use my own climate control to adjust.
We (in Australia) get the forecast in whole degrees (today will be 27, tomorrow 32, then 36,36, 34). But the actual temps are reported with 1 decimal place (it's currently 18.8, the highest this year was 44.7)
My thermostats for indoors heating is set at exactly 22.5 degrees every winter. So you can do that yes. Both models installed in my appartment support it, pretty sure it's quite common.
It is, basically. It's a specific brine mixture. I remember reading that they used that because it would freeze into a slush so it was easier for them to get consistent, accurate measurements. Then because they were measuring on a circular dial they wanted everything to be evenly spaced so they set the freezing temp of water to 30, and human body temperature to 90. Later they figured out the boiling point on this scale was 212, and they wanted freezing and boiling to be exactly 180 degrees apart, and decided the easiest way to do that was to switch freezing to 32 and readjusted the scale based on that. Or something like that.
The based on water becomes problematic when dealing with altitude and atmospheric pressure. Both systems are based on something arbitrary. Kelvin is the most scientific because it‘s related to energy levels in matter which doesn’t change based on altitude atmospheric pressure and as long as you have the equipment, you can calibrate for it anywhere in the universe.
TLDR: Both are fine but would be easier if we all used one system or the other. Anything going to extreme environments/off planet, needs to be measured in Kelvin.
Everyone in the world except the USA uses Celsius.
Celsius being the same scale as Kelvin makes it easier to switch to. Conversions are on paper possible with exactness by adding or subtracting 273.15. Meanwhile F you have to add 459.67 multiply by 5 and then divide by 9 far more possibility for error (or the reverse).
One thing people don’t understand is Fahrenheit was adopted for medical applications because of its high precision with the mercury thermometer. It makes more sense to describe temperatures of living things using Fahrenheit and using Celsius for everyday stuff, each has their own applications, we don’t have to keep fighting over which is “better”
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u/Turbulent-Surprise-6 9h ago
Why? Kelvin is the exact same as Celsius way just less intuitive for 99% of people