4 ms·

When you grow up with it, it's not so bad. Celsius may be easier to work with but it takes longer for me to grok "15C" or "27C" ... If anything, you have less

by tomc1985 8y ago

When you grow up with it, it's not so bad. Celsius may be easier to work with but it takes longer for me to grok "15C" or "27C" ... If anything, you have less granularity with celsius, as each degree of temperature represents a wider range of values.

johnchristopher 8y ago
I am not convinced that granularity is a good argument. I'd venture to bet that few people can distinguish between 15C and 16C and you'd agree and then I'd say that it then follows that even less people can distinguish between 15F and 16F so why such a precise scale is better than Celsius ?
- tomc1985 8y ago
  The difference between 78F and 80F is perceptible to me -- 80F is too hot, indoors, and around 50% humidity, while 78F at similar humidity is fairly comfortable. I agree that it may not be the most useful thing, but it's worth pointing out. Also- "2 degrees" of global warming doesn't sound so bad to a lot of fahrenheit folks, its actually closer to 4 degrees in F
  - armadsen 8y ago
    Yeah, I think there’s something to this. In the US, the news talks about climate change using Celsius, presumably because that’s how scientists measure it. But from a messaging/persuasion perspective, it’s bad. The average American thinks that “2 degrees” isn’t so bad. And in Fahrenheit that’s (kinda) true. I think climate change should be discussed using the units that the public has intuition for.
- njarboe 8y ago
  As an American I recently rented a Volkswagen in Austria. I found it funny/ironic that the inside temperature settings had half degree steps with all of the Europeans I've heard complain about the Fahrenheit scale use in US. So at least some German wanted that granularity.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    No doubt if you change the settings on the car to American, it has half degrees Fahrenheit.
    - rconti 8y ago
      Wrong.
  - Johnny555 8y ago
    Maybe they did that since they had the space -- a Fahrenheit display needs to show 3 digits since 100+ degrees F is possible but if it's 100C, then you've got bigger things to worry about than your car's temperature display.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      I doubt you can set the temp control in a car to 100F. Unless you are in a sauna, no one is ever going to want to have that high a temp.
danbolt 8y ago
I find the same way with Celsius too. Or, like when you grow up the world kind of conditions you to associate certain feelings of heat/humidity with certain numbers. I always get confused going to the US, but I do like that they have more values as you mentioned. Or, Celsius only has 40 numbers that tell you how things are.
oftenwrong 8y ago
Maybe we should measure in decidegrees Celsius. 20.2°C = 202d°C

johnchristopher 8y ago

I am not convinced that granularity is a good argument. I'd venture to bet that few people can distinguish between 15C and 16C and you'd agree and then I'd say that it then follows that even less people can distinguish between 15F and 16F so why such a precise scale is better than Celsius ?

tomc1985 8y ago
The difference between 78F and 80F is perceptible to me -- 80F is too hot, indoors, and around 50% humidity, while 78F at similar humidity is fairly comfortable. I agree that it may not be the most useful thing, but it's worth pointing out. Also- "2 degrees" of global warming doesn't sound so bad to a lot of fahrenheit folks, its actually closer to 4 degrees in F
- armadsen 8y ago
  Yeah, I think there’s something to this. In the US, the news talks about climate change using Celsius, presumably because that’s how scientists measure it. But from a messaging/persuasion perspective, it’s bad. The average American thinks that “2 degrees” isn’t so bad. And in Fahrenheit that’s (kinda) true. I think climate change should be discussed using the units that the public has intuition for.
njarboe 8y ago
As an American I recently rented a Volkswagen in Austria. I found it funny/ironic that the inside temperature settings had half degree steps with all of the Europeans I've heard complain about the Fahrenheit scale use in US. So at least some German wanted that granularity.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  No doubt if you change the settings on the car to American, it has half degrees Fahrenheit.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Wrong.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  Maybe they did that since they had the space -- a Fahrenheit display needs to show 3 digits since 100+ degrees F is possible but if it's 100C, then you've got bigger things to worry about than your car's temperature display.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    I doubt you can set the temp control in a car to 100F. Unless you are in a sauna, no one is ever going to want to have that high a temp.

danbolt 8y ago

I find the same way with Celsius too. Or, like when you grow up the world kind of conditions you to associate certain feelings of heat/humidity with certain numbers. I always get confused going to the US, but I do like that they have more values as you mentioned. Or, Celsius only has 40 numbers that tell you how things are.

oftenwrong 8y ago

Maybe we should measure in decidegrees Celsius. 20.2°C = 202d°C