4 ms·

> human-centric temperature scale One point (100 °F ~ 37 °C) doesn't make a scale.

by dom0 9y ago

JshWright 9y ago
Heh, sorry, that was just a tongue-in-cheek joke, not a central point of my comment. 0 to 100 on the Fahrenheit scale is "Really Cold" to "Really Hot". 0 to 100 on the Celsius scale is "Kinda Cold" to "Unsurvivable Hot". When I say it's "human-centric" I mean that it maps well to the range of human comfort (Celsius is obviously vastly superior in just about every other use).
- noir_lord 9y ago
  I'm not sure that the 0-100 thing matters that much. I'm in the UK we switched to C for temperatures back when I was a kid (I still vaguely remember both been used on weather charts back when they stuck the things on by hand..), 0 is cold, 10C is brisk, 16C is perfect, 20C is warm, 30C is hot, 35C is "kill me now".
- wongarsu 9y ago
  I'm not so sure I would call 100° C "unsurvivable". People go in saunas with 100° C all the time for enjoyment. If the air is dry enough, it's not that hot. Maybe it's unsustainable, you can't survive that indefinitely. But you can't survive 0° F indefinitely either, unless we bring protective clothing into the game.
  - sureshv 9y ago
    100C would send you to the burn unit. I think you mean 100F. Edit: 100C is boiling point for water - is the ambient temp of the Sauna 100C?
    - wongarsu 9y ago
      I'm thinking of finnish-style saunas, which operate at 60 to 100 °C [1] (with 100°C being a frequent option). You usually stay in them 10-15 min at a time, but I guess if you keep hydrated you could stay a lot longer. Finnish saunas are kept very dry. Sufficiently dry air makes very hot temperatures bearable because evaporation cooling from sweat gets more effective the dryer the surrounding air is. Water on the other hand makes sweating useless, which is why you can't tolerate water temperatures above body temperature (depending on how much of you is submerged). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna#Types_of_sauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna#Types_of_sauna
    - photojosh 9y ago
      "Air temperatures averaged around 75–100 °C (167–212 °F) but sometimes exceeded 110 °C (230 °F) in a traditional Finnish sauna." [0] Apparently so! TIL. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna

> human-centric temperature scale One point (100 °F ~ 37 °C) doesn't make a scale.

by dom0 9y ago

> human-centric temperature scale One point (100 °F ~ 37 °C) doesn't make a scale.

Heh, sorry, that was just a tongue-in-cheek joke, not a central point of my comment. 0 to 100 on the Fahrenheit scale is "Really Cold" to "Really Hot". 0 to 100 on the Celsius scale is "Kinda Cold" to "Unsurvivable Hot". When I say it's "human-centric" I mean that it maps well to the range of human comfort (Celsius is obviously vastly superior in just about every other use).

noir_lord 9y ago
I'm not sure that the 0-100 thing matters that much. I'm in the UK we switched to C for temperatures back when I was a kid (I still vaguely remember both been used on weather charts back when they stuck the things on by hand..), 0 is cold, 10C is brisk, 16C is perfect, 20C is warm, 30C is hot, 35C is "kill me now".
wongarsu 9y ago
I'm not so sure I would call 100° C "unsurvivable". People go in saunas with 100° C all the time for enjoyment. If the air is dry enough, it's not that hot. Maybe it's unsustainable, you can't survive that indefinitely. But you can't survive 0° F indefinitely either, unless we bring protective clothing into the game.
- sureshv 9y ago
  100C would send you to the burn unit. I think you mean 100F. Edit: 100C is boiling point for water - is the ambient temp of the Sauna 100C?
  - wongarsu 9y ago
    I'm thinking of finnish-style saunas, which operate at 60 to 100 °C [1] (with 100°C being a frequent option). You usually stay in them 10-15 min at a time, but I guess if you keep hydrated you could stay a lot longer. Finnish saunas are kept very dry. Sufficiently dry air makes very hot temperatures bearable because evaporation cooling from sweat gets more effective the dryer the surrounding air is. Water on the other hand makes sweating useless, which is why you can't tolerate water temperatures above body temperature (depending on how much of you is submerged). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna#Types_of_sauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna#Types_of_sauna
  - photojosh 9y ago
    "Air temperatures averaged around 75–100 °C (167–212 °F) but sometimes exceeded 110 °C (230 °F) in a traditional Finnish sauna." [0] Apparently so! TIL. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna