2 ms·

Ah, you're right about calorie vs. Joule. That is a bit rough around the edges. > For temperature Fahrenheit is the better scale. Yeah, no. It's a stupid syst

Ah, you're right about calorie vs. Joule. That is a bit rough around the edges. > For temperature Fahrenheit is the better scale. Yeah, no. It's a stupid system. It's not even calibrated properly. 100° was supposed to be body temperature. They got it wrong. 0° was the lowest temperature they could measure at the time because that's when mercury froze. That's so useful! I really want to know if the mercury I carry around all the time is going to freeze outside. Meanwhile °C is simple: 0°C is "watch for ice" and 100°C is "water boils" (minus altitude factor). I don't know how you can praise Kelvin and slam Celsius since they're the same "size", it's just that the zero point of Kelvin was set to absolute zero instead of the freezing point of water. °C = °K + 273.15. That's it.

ars 10y ago
> That is a bit rough around the edges. Correct. It would be one thing if Celsius is somehow tied into the rest of the SI units, but it is not, which means we can replace it. > It's not even calibrated properly. Who cares if they got the calibration of Fahrenheit wrong, at the end of the day it's more usable than Celsius for humans. 0 Fahrenheit is the temperature when it's really cold outside, 100 is when it's hot. It doesn't get simpler than that. If you are outside those ranges you need to take special precautions. No, I don't care about mercury either, but I do care to know when it's cold. It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees is too coarse. > 100°C is "water boils" And exactly how often do you need to measure the temperature when water boils? Probably about as often as I freeze mercury. So 100 is a very useless range on Celsius - you are using your "best" numerical range on useless temperatures. On the other hand it's quite common to want to know when it's hot enough that you will sweat. Above 100 (body temperature) you will sweat. Labs and Ovens don't really care about which exact unit, so let them deal with the higher (or lower) numbers - the only time it matters is for ordinary humans checking the weather. > I don't know how you can praise Kelvin and slam Celsius You misread, I did not praise Kelvin, I said we could replace it.
- kriro 10y ago
  """And exactly how often do you need to measure the temperature when water boils?""" I drink green tea a lot. You pour the water at 70-75 degrees C. It's a lot easier to do the math of how much water you need to add to instantly cool the water from the water boiler down to that range. """Labs and Ovens don't really care about which exact unit, so let them deal with the higher (or lower) numbers - the only time it matters is for ordinary humans checking the weather.""" What? I use temperature more when cooking/BBQing than when checking the weather. """With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time""" This is a feature, not a bug. Negative number -> below freezing. """0 Fahrenheit is the temperature when it's really cold outside, 100 is when it's hot. It doesn't get simpler than that. If you are outside those ranges you need to take special precautions.""" I also need to take special precautions within these ranges. Most notably switching between summer/winter tires.
- astrodust 10y ago
  > It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees is too coarse. Well, the whole world manages to deal with °C and only America and a handful of backwater countries insist on using °F. "Too coarse" is absurd. People just measure to the nearest 0.5°C if you want to get all fussy, but that's not normally the case. It's 12° out? Wear a jacket. 12.0 vs. 12.5° isn't going to change that. It keeps the numbers smaller. Temperatures here flop between -40°C and +40°C, so the numbers never get large. Meanwhile in the US you see temperatures of 100°F all the time as well as negative ones like -30°F. It's a much wider spread for no real reason. I hope you know the only reason America didn't get with the program and metricize like it was fully intending to do in the early 1980s is because Reagan was an asshole.
  - ars 10y ago
    I'm onboard for metric - just not for temperature. Just because you manage to deal with C doesn't make it better. Do you see the parallels? You tell Americans all the benefits of metric, they don't care. You tell Europeans all the benefits of Fahrenheit, they don't care. People don't want to change. > It keeps the numbers smaller. No, it doesn't. You need 3 digits since you need the decimal (-20.5).

ars 10y ago

> That is a bit rough around the edges. Correct. It would be one thing if Celsius is somehow tied into the rest of the SI units, but it is not, which means we can replace it. > It's not even calibrated properly. Who cares if they got the calibration of Fahrenheit wrong, at the end of the day it's more usable than Celsius for humans. 0 Fahrenheit is the temperature when it's really cold outside, 100 is when it's hot. It doesn't get simpler than that. If you are outside those ranges you need to take special precautions. No, I don't care about mercury either, but I do care to know when it's cold. It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees is too coarse. > 100°C is "water boils" And exactly how often do you need to measure the temperature when water boils? Probably about as often as I freeze mercury. So 100 is a very useless range on Celsius - you are using your "best" numerical range on useless temperatures. On the other hand it's quite common to want to know when it's hot enough that you will sweat. Above 100 (body temperature) you will sweat. Labs and Ovens don't really care about which exact unit, so let them deal with the higher (or lower) numbers - the only time it matters is for ordinary humans checking the weather. > I don't know how you can praise Kelvin and slam Celsius You misread, I did not praise Kelvin, I said we could replace it.

kriro 10y ago
"""And exactly how often do you need to measure the temperature when water boils?""" I drink green tea a lot. You pour the water at 70-75 degrees C. It's a lot easier to do the math of how much water you need to add to instantly cool the water from the water boiler down to that range. """Labs and Ovens don't really care about which exact unit, so let them deal with the higher (or lower) numbers - the only time it matters is for ordinary humans checking the weather.""" What? I use temperature more when cooking/BBQing than when checking the weather. """With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time""" This is a feature, not a bug. Negative number -> below freezing. """0 Fahrenheit is the temperature when it's really cold outside, 100 is when it's hot. It doesn't get simpler than that. If you are outside those ranges you need to take special precautions.""" I also need to take special precautions within these ranges. Most notably switching between summer/winter tires.
astrodust 10y ago
> It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees is too coarse. Well, the whole world manages to deal with °C and only America and a handful of backwater countries insist on using °F. "Too coarse" is absurd. People just measure to the nearest 0.5°C if you want to get all fussy, but that's not normally the case. It's 12° out? Wear a jacket. 12.0 vs. 12.5° isn't going to change that. It keeps the numbers smaller. Temperatures here flop between -40°C and +40°C, so the numbers never get large. Meanwhile in the US you see temperatures of 100°F all the time as well as negative ones like -30°F. It's a much wider spread for no real reason. I hope you know the only reason America didn't get with the program and metricize like it was fully intending to do in the early 1980s is because Reagan was an asshole.
- ars 10y ago
  I'm onboard for metric - just not for temperature. Just because you manage to deal with C doesn't make it better. Do you see the parallels? You tell Americans all the benefits of metric, they don't care. You tell Europeans all the benefits of Fahrenheit, they don't care. People don't want to change. > It keeps the numbers smaller. No, it doesn't. You need 3 digits since you need the decimal (-20.5).