this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (11 children)

The freezing point of water is very important to weather, and requires prior knowledge of the arbitrary number 32.

[–] Lizardking27@lemmy.world -3 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Okay so fahrenheit has a well-defined high and low, but an arbitrary freezing point of one certain chemical. All other chemical freezing points are arbitrary.

Celsius has an arbitrary high and low, but a well-defined freezing point of that same chemical. All other freezing points are arbitrary.

If your motivation is to minimize the amount of arbitrary values you have to memorize, fahrenheit is the clear winner.

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The 0 in Fahrenheit was based on nothing and the 100F was supposed to be human temperature but it is off by some degrees

The water is not an arbitrary temperature, the weather is water dependant, at 0C the water will freeze and you get snow/ice instead of rain

[–] actually@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

0°F is when the ocean freezes

100° F was human body temperature, later revised somewhat with better measurements and a decrease of parasites . The average person in those days in London had a slightly higher body temperature than today

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

0F is not ocean freezing, is the freezing temp of a brine mix that he chose arbitrarily (some think that he chose that temp because it was close to the coldest his town had ever been and he used it to calibrate the scales of his thermometers)

FYI, the ocean freezes at around 28F

[–] actually@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Oceans freezing also depends on currents, and mixing of the water from the surface. 28° will freeze water in a room.

This is why often the ocean is not frozen at much lower temperatures.

I’m not at all cognizant of how 0 was decided

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