5 ms·

Anecdotally, while Celsius is great in most science and engineering situations, I personally find Fahrenheit more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment

Anecdotally, while Celsius is great in most science and engineering situations, I personally find Fahrenheit more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment temperatures. Fahrenheit gives more granularity without the need for a decimal when thinking about temperatures most people would experience on a daily basis. A normal spring/early summer might have temperatures ranging from 4-38°C or 40-100°F, Fahrenheit gives 60 distinct steps where Celsius provides only 34.

Symbiote 8y ago
You are kidding yourself if you think you can tell the difference between 23.0°C and 23.5°C. Your used to it, and the explanation is an invented justification. I lived all my life in metric countries, and have never heard anyone use a decimal to describe the weather, except for a record (47.6°C or whatever it is).
- cambalache 8y ago
  Ding, ding, ding. I have always heard this "explanation" and it amuses me to no end. I also heard the version that human height is more intuitive in feet and inches and weight in pounds. Fortunately this is harmless.
- kylec 8y ago
  In my (German-made) car the temperature can be toggled up/down by one degree Fahrenheit. If I switch it to Celsius, an additional digit is displayed which shows either a 0 or 5 that lets me select the temperature in 0.5C degree increments. To me, this is a pretty clear indication that people can feel the difference in half degrees Celsius (otherwise, why would the manufacturer bother with it?). And because of that, Fahrenheit is better for human-scale temperatures, as only two significant digits are required instead of three.
  - yongjik 8y ago
    People can feel the difference between a particular air conditioner blowing cool air at intensity 3 versus intensity 4, which is what these "temperature" dials boil down to. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can distinguish two identical rooms with 0.5°C temperature difference.
  - CompuHacker 8y ago
    Fahrenheit and Celsius have a thing where one degree in Celsius equals about two degrees in Fahrenheit. I think your car computer prefers Fahrenheit and misrepresents the exact values.
skrause 8y ago
> I personally find Fahrenheit more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment temperatures. I personally find Celsius more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment temperatures, because that's what I grew up with. Seriously, don't try to invent reasons why Fahrenheit might be more intuitive than Celsius, it's not. Neither is superior, no matter who you ask the more "intuitive" will always be the one a person grew up with. I just wish the whole world would use a single scale because that's less confusing. And here the argument is on the Celsius side because only a small minority of people in the world (<5%) use Fahrenheit.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Quite the contrary, imperial units and scales were selected because of human factors and expectation of user experience. If you care about such things, there are objective reasons to say imperial units are "better" than SI units. Units of length on the order of a finger-width (inch), foot-length, or stride or arms-width (meter), or area that could be plowed in one day (acre). You don't need special calibrated tools to measure/estimate these. Units of volume are based on successive halvings (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.) because all you need is two identical cups to split a liquid to be the same level in each--works for non-liquid volumes too, if you measure them by submersing in equal volumes of liquid. The unit of mass -- pound -- is similarly split into 16 ounces because the pound originated as a measurement for silver, and a simple balance could be used to split 1 lb silver into 8 oz, 4 oz, 2 oz, 1 oz, or smaller, and then be combined to make change. Units of temperature have integer gradations approximately equal to what sensitive skin of the human body can discern in the atmosphere--I can feel the difference between 70 and 71, but not 70.0 and 70.5--and a nice even value for the normal temperature of the human body (above 100F, you have a fever). Arguably the boiling point of water is more important these days, but only since the rise of steam power and other industrial things that get very hot. What system would I rather use, if I were hypothetically not already accustomed to one? Well imperial has clearly better optimized user experience, even if some parts have aged with technological change less well than others. It co-evolved with pre-industrial human societies but is still well matched to the day to day environment we find ourselves in, even today, in the produce aisle of a grocery store, in the kitchen, in estimating the weight or size of things we might pick up, etc. Example: when I open a recipe and it says "3 cups of flour and 2 tablespoons of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt" then I don't need any special measuring cups or scales to make this recipe--I can make do with stuff lying about the kitchen--it's in the names! Take something that looks like a average-sized drinking cup or mug and fill it with flour three times, take an eating spoon and fill it twice with baking soda, and take a drink-mixing spoon and make one scoop of salt. Alternatively how am I supposed to interpret 0.75 kg flour, 30 mL baking soda, and 5 g salt? Either I've cooked and measured enough to have an intuition for such things, or I'd better have calibrated tools available. What do you get in return for using the not-so-human-scale SI units? Nice powers of 10? No one was ever stopping you from talking about mega-pounds or micro-inches, so long as you're consistent on lbs vs oz and ft vs in. Imperial units aren't any different in this regard from saying "2 hours" in an SI context and people knowing to multiply by 3600s/hr to get the official unit At the end of the day I prefer SI for the same reason I prefer English--as a global standard because it is the standard, even though it is actually pretty terrible. It's a bit like Qwerty vs Dvorak/Colemak/Workman, except the decision isn't a personal choice. I do wish the French had decided things differently some 225 years ago though.
raverbashing 8y ago
Not really A difference smaller than 2C is usually negligible, unless you're close to the freezing point. So even Celsius is "overaccurate" The intuitiveness of a measuring system is mostly people growing accustomed to it. If you've lived in a child place you probably couldn't tell the difference between 30C and 40C
prmph 8y ago
I find Celsius more intuitive because the freezing point (of water) in that scale is zero.
robocat 8y ago
That sounds like a self-justification. Outside temperatures vary by a lot more than 1 degree (the difference between precision and accuracy?) The place I have seen where Fahrenheit makes sense is for human temperatures - what temperature is a high fever? I have never seen an aircon unit with half-degree Celcius settings, except in some cars which to me seems to be an anti-feature. They are both hard words to spell, but Celsius is shorter, so a big win for °C there!

Symbiote 8y ago

You are kidding yourself if you think you can tell the difference between 23.0°C and 23.5°C. Your used to it, and the explanation is an invented justification. I lived all my life in metric countries, and have never heard anyone use a decimal to describe the weather, except for a record (47.6°C or whatever it is).

cambalache 8y ago
Ding, ding, ding. I have always heard this "explanation" and it amuses me to no end. I also heard the version that human height is more intuitive in feet and inches and weight in pounds. Fortunately this is harmless.
kylec 8y ago
In my (German-made) car the temperature can be toggled up/down by one degree Fahrenheit. If I switch it to Celsius, an additional digit is displayed which shows either a 0 or 5 that lets me select the temperature in 0.5C degree increments. To me, this is a pretty clear indication that people can feel the difference in half degrees Celsius (otherwise, why would the manufacturer bother with it?). And because of that, Fahrenheit is better for human-scale temperatures, as only two significant digits are required instead of three.
- yongjik 8y ago
  People can feel the difference between a particular air conditioner blowing cool air at intensity 3 versus intensity 4, which is what these "temperature" dials boil down to. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can distinguish two identical rooms with 0.5°C temperature difference.
- CompuHacker 8y ago
  Fahrenheit and Celsius have a thing where one degree in Celsius equals about two degrees in Fahrenheit. I think your car computer prefers Fahrenheit and misrepresents the exact values.

skrause 8y ago

> I personally find Fahrenheit more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment temperatures. I personally find Celsius more intuitive when discussing outdoor/environment temperatures, because that's what I grew up with. Seriously, don't try to invent reasons why Fahrenheit might be more intuitive than Celsius, it's not. Neither is superior, no matter who you ask the more "intuitive" will always be the one a person grew up with. I just wish the whole world would use a single scale because that's less confusing. And here the argument is on the Celsius side because only a small minority of people in the world (<5%) use Fahrenheit.

garmaine 8y ago
Quite the contrary, imperial units and scales were selected because of human factors and expectation of user experience. If you care about such things, there are objective reasons to say imperial units are "better" than SI units. Units of length on the order of a finger-width (inch), foot-length, or stride or arms-width (meter), or area that could be plowed in one day (acre). You don't need special calibrated tools to measure/estimate these. Units of volume are based on successive halvings (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.) because all you need is two identical cups to split a liquid to be the same level in each--works for non-liquid volumes too, if you measure them by submersing in equal volumes of liquid. The unit of mass -- pound -- is similarly split into 16 ounces because the pound originated as a measurement for silver, and a simple balance could be used to split 1 lb silver into 8 oz, 4 oz, 2 oz, 1 oz, or smaller, and then be combined to make change. Units of temperature have integer gradations approximately equal to what sensitive skin of the human body can discern in the atmosphere--I can feel the difference between 70 and 71, but not 70.0 and 70.5--and a nice even value for the normal temperature of the human body (above 100F, you have a fever). Arguably the boiling point of water is more important these days, but only since the rise of steam power and other industrial things that get very hot. What system would I rather use, if I were hypothetically not already accustomed to one? Well imperial has clearly better optimized user experience, even if some parts have aged with technological change less well than others. It co-evolved with pre-industrial human societies but is still well matched to the day to day environment we find ourselves in, even today, in the produce aisle of a grocery store, in the kitchen, in estimating the weight or size of things we might pick up, etc. Example: when I open a recipe and it says "3 cups of flour and 2 tablespoons of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt" then I don't need any special measuring cups or scales to make this recipe--I can make do with stuff lying about the kitchen--it's in the names! Take something that looks like a average-sized drinking cup or mug and fill it with flour three times, take an eating spoon and fill it twice with baking soda, and take a drink-mixing spoon and make one scoop of salt. Alternatively how am I supposed to interpret 0.75 kg flour, 30 mL baking soda, and 5 g salt? Either I've cooked and measured enough to have an intuition for such things, or I'd better have calibrated tools available. What do you get in return for using the not-so-human-scale SI units? Nice powers of 10? No one was ever stopping you from talking about mega-pounds or micro-inches, so long as you're consistent on lbs vs oz and ft vs in. Imperial units aren't any different in this regard from saying "2 hours" in an SI context and people knowing to multiply by 3600s/hr to get the official unit At the end of the day I prefer SI for the same reason I prefer English--as a global standard because it is the standard, even though it is actually pretty terrible. It's a bit like Qwerty vs Dvorak/Colemak/Workman, except the decision isn't a personal choice. I do wish the French had decided things differently some 225 years ago though.

raverbashing 8y ago

Not really A difference smaller than 2C is usually negligible, unless you're close to the freezing point. So even Celsius is "overaccurate" The intuitiveness of a measuring system is mostly people growing accustomed to it. If you've lived in a child place you probably couldn't tell the difference between 30C and 40C

prmph 8y ago

I find Celsius more intuitive because the freezing point (of water) in that scale is zero.

robocat 8y ago

That sounds like a self-justification. Outside temperatures vary by a lot more than 1 degree (the difference between precision and accuracy?) The place I have seen where Fahrenheit makes sense is for human temperatures - what temperature is a high fever? I have never seen an aircon unit with half-degree Celcius settings, except in some cars which to me seems to be an anti-feature. They are both hard words to spell, but Celsius is shorter, so a big win for °C there!