this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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The metric system, f*ck the imperial system. Every scientist sticks to the metric system, and why are people even still having an imperial system, with outdated measurements like stones for weight blows my mind.
Also f*ck Fahrenheit, we have Celsius and Kalvin for that, we don't need another hard to convert temperature measurement.
You are allowed to say fuck here.
Imperial is used in thermodynamics industries because the calculations work out better.
Who is Kalvin? Did you mean kelvin?
One drawback of celsius/centigrade is that its degrees are so coarse that weather reports / ambient temperature readings end up either inaccurate or complicated by floating point numbers. I'm on board with using it, but I won't pretend it's strictly superior.
A degree Celsius is not coarse and does not require decimals in weather reports, and I suspect only a person who has never lived in a Celsius-using country could make such silly claims.
Consider that even if the difference between 15° and 16°C is not significant to you, it very well might be to other people. (Spoiler: it is.)
Then your suspicions are leading you astray.
They didn't say a difference of 1K isn't significant but the difference of 0.1K isn't.
And since the supposed advantage of Fahrenheit is that it better reflects typical ambient temperatures, we have to consider relevance for average people. Hardly anyone will feel a difference of 0.1K.
That's why European weather reports usually show full degrees. And also our fridges show full degrees.
What about thermostats for homes? I can absolutely feel a 2 deg F difference
~~Also whole degrees.~~ edit: no, that's wrong, there are thermostats that allow 1/10th of degrees (I only have old manual ones). Still, you probably are not able to tell the difference between 20 and 20.1 °C. Humidity is far more relevant.
A difference of 2 °F is 1.1 °C...
I use °C and I feel the need to use the places after the decimal. Also, I feel nothing wrong about it.
Also, I use °F for body temperature measurement and need to use the places after the decimal and feel fine with it.
Also, when using °C for body temperature, I still require the same number of decimal places as I require for °F.
I am not saying that °F is not useful, but I am invalidating your argument.
I'll fight you on fahrenheit. It's very good for weather reporting. 0° being "very cold" and 100° being "very hot" is intuitive.
0 degrees Celsius, the water is freezing, 100 degrees Celsius, the water is boiling. Celsius has a direct link to Kelvin, and Kelvin is the SI unit for measurement temperatures.
Asterisk: At 1 atmosphere of pressure. Lots of people forget that part.
What do I care about water? I'm not dressing water for the weather, I'm dressing me.
Are you not made primarily of water?
Knowing whether it may snow or rain depending on whether you are below or above 0 is very useful though. 0 and 100 are only intuitive because you're used to those numbers. -20 bring very cold and 40 being very hot is just as easy.
As someone who’s not used to Fahrenheit I can tell you there’s nothing intuitive about it. How cold is “very cold” exactly? How hot is “very hot” exactly? Without clear references all the numbers in between are meaningless, which is exactly how I perceive any number in Fahrenfeit. Intuitive means that without knowing I should have an intuitive perception, but really there’s nothing to go on. I guess from your description 50°F should mean it’s comfortable? Does that mean I can go out in shorts and a t-shirt? It all seems guesswork.
About the only useful thing I see is that 100 Fahrenheit is about body temperature. Yeah, that's about the only nice thing I can say about Fahrenheit. All temperature scales are arbitrary, but since our environment is full of water, one tied to the phase changes of water around the atmospheric pressure the vast majority of people experience just makes more sense.
But when it comes to weather, the boiling point of water is not a meaningful point of reference.
I suppose I'm biased since I grew up in an area where 0-100°F was roughly the actual temperature range over the course of a year. It was newsworthy when we dropped below zero or rose above 100. It was a scale everybody understood intuitively because it aligned with our lived experience.
Well, the freezing point of water is very relevant for weather. If I see that the forecast is -1 degC when it was positive before, I know I will have to watch out for ice on roads.
And the boiling point as the other reference point makes complete sense.
Ours is around 10°C to 40°C, or 15°C to 30°C depending upon your tolerances, so I guess that's it.
This is strictly untrue for many climates. Where I live in Canada, 0F is average winter day, 100F is record-breaking "I might actually die" levels of heat.
-30C to 30C is not any more complicated or less intuitive than -22F to 86F
For traffic Celsius is more intuitive since temps approaching zero means slippery roads.
You're long passed that with Fahrenheit. And on a scale from 0 very cold to 100 very hot, 32 doesn't seem that cold. Until you see the snow outside.
32 isn't that cold, even if it's snowing. I do currently live in Minnesota though, so my sense of temperature is much different than someone from somewhere warm.
That's probably the reason for this preference.
10°C for me means my PC doesn't heat up the room enough and I need a heater. 32°F and I will be shoving my feet in the heater.
Minnesotan here. Can confirm that 32 is still long-sleeve shirt weather.
I regularly see people here walking into a store from the parking lot in T-shirts, in 32° weather. Wind chill makes a far greater difference. 38° from wind chill is far colder than 32° with no wind.
Ask someone in the north of finland how hot is "very hot", and how cold is very cold. Then ask the same in middle Africa. Spoiler: it will vary alot.