Science Memes

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temperature (mander.xyz)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 212 points 9 months ago (44 children)

Americans always regurgite the "Fahrenheit is how people feel" nonsense, but it is just that: nonsense. Americans are familiar with fahrenheit so they think that it is more inituitive than other systems, but unsurprisingly people who are used to celsius have no problems using it to measure "how people feel" and will think it is a very inituitive system.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (31 children)

Can confirm. Moved from the US to Canada and maybe a year of using Celcius revealed to me just how fucking stupid and convoluted Fahrenheit is. My dad spent three weeks out here and started using Celcius on his phone. Now I only use Fahrenheit when dealing with fevers or temping cases of suspiciously overripe produce.

Fellow Americans. Celcius is superior and more intuitive for those who take a moment to adjust to it. It is okay to accept this as fact without developing an inferiority complex. USA not always #1. USA quite often not #1 and that is okay. It is okay for USA to not be #1 without developing an inferiority complex.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Both are equally arbitrary. You just have to know a handful of temperatures that you use in your day to day life either way.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Celsius being based on water makes it the most intuitive of the three imo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Hum... Around here water boils at ~96°C (some labs measure that). And it seems to not freeze at 0°C anywhere on Earth, as it's never pure water, with never an homogeneous freezing point.

It is repeatable, it's not very arbitrary, but "intuitive" doesn't apply in any way.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

You must be at altitude. That definitely makes a difference for the boiling point, but of course water freezes at 0. Impurities that you'll encounter in tap water, for example, will not have a large effect on freezing point.

Even if it was different by a few degrees, how does that make the scale any less intuitive?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Differences are neglegtable. 96°C is still going to kill you.

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