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In Defense of Fahrenheit
- username444 7y agoThe argument that 0-100 being an intuitive and useful daily use scale is actually a good one. However, everything else falls flat. Nobody actually uses decimals with celcius, because nobody can tell the difference between 8.2 degrees and 8.7 degrees. It's just 8 and 9. Zero being freezing is a critical number to know, because that's when you can get black ice (+/- wind-chill) and snow. Knowing that 35 is grossly hot is no more difficult than knowing -32 is freezing. Celcius has simple ranges: Below 0: it's freezing, bundle up 0-10: it's cold outside, wear a jacket 10-20: good for physical activity, sweater and light jacket required 20-30: it's comfortable outside 30+: stay in the shade That said, all our appliances (oven, barbecue) use Fahrenheit and I have no idea what temperature to cook at in celcius.
- kylec 7y agoTo provide a counterexample to your statement "nobody actually uses decimals with celsius", when I switch the climate control system in my German-made car to Celsius mode it does use decimals: either .0 or .5, and the toggle moves the temperature up or down by half a degree. Whereas in Fahrenheit mode the toggle moves the temperature up or down by a single degree, which seems cleaner and simpler to me (not to mention the F display uses 2 digits, while the C display uses 3).
- seszett 7y ago> the F display uses 2 digits, while the C display uses 3 The °F display must use three digits as well when it's more than 37°C, which isn't that rare (at least for me, maybe not where you live).
- kylec 7y agoI don't think the climate control system in any car can be set to pump out 100F+ heat. Usually it ranges from 60-80F.
- seszett 7y agoOh right, I thought it was for the external temperature sensor. Yeah, climate control won't go that far of course. It also does use half degrees (only between 19°C and 23°C in my car).
- RenRav 7y agoThe decimal point wasn't brought up against celsius specifically. I think the biggest factor of c/f preference is just what you grew up with and are most accustomed to using every day.
- jobigoud 7y agoThere are objective landmarks outside of culture. The absolute zero, water freezing, water boiling, human normal body temperature, etc. It's better to use a unit where important ones are aligned to small practical. Probably something better than celcius could be designed.
- username444 7y agoCompletely agree.
- Symbiote 7y ago> That said, all our appliances (oven, barbecue) use Fahrenheit and I have no idea what temperature to cook at in celcius. It surprised me when we recruited a developer from Canada, and on his second day at work he asked what temperature he should have set the oven to. I learned that Canada has appliances labelled in "American". 180°C is the most common oven temperature required, outside 160-200°C is unusual for normal cooking.
- jld 7y agoIve always thought ovens could do fine with a five setting control. Warming (180-200F)/90C Low 300F/150C Med 350F/180C High 400F/200C Broil
- francislavoie 7y agoCanadian here, 325-450F is the typical range I've needed to use, pizzas are often what I cook at those hotter temps. That's about 160-230C. There's a surprising inconsistency in Canada for units because of our proximity to the US. For body weight and height, nearly everyone uses lbs and feet/inches, but official records (on my driver's license for example) uses kg and cm. Like you said, most appliances are F. Distances are in km but property sizes are still often in sqft (because lots of products come from the US). The list goes on.
- dagw 7y agooutside 160-200°C is unusual for normal cooking. Huh? I probably do more than 50% of my cooking outside that range.
- Jedd 7y ago> Zero being freezing is a critical number to know, because that's when you can get black ice (+/- wind-chill) and snow. For those of us who don't live somewhere that ever gets black ice, this is not a critical reason. Also, I suspect that wind-chill does not work how you think it works. > That said, all our appliances (oven, barbecue) use Fahrenheit and I have no idea what temperature to cook at in celcius. Spare a thought for those of us in enlightened civilisations that have to deal with myriad north-american based cookbooks ... but having said that, it'd take you a couple of weeks, with maybe a post-it note in the kitchen for the duration, to get the hang of the conversion rate.
- Taniwha 7y agoThat's OK, cooking in the US is weird - they use cups in their recipes that are a different size from those used in the rest of the world - because of course they use fluid ounces/gallons/etc that are a different size from Imperial cups/flu ozs/gallons, much less different from a standard 250g metric cup
- KaiserPro 7y agoThere is a desperate attempt by some news papers in the UK to bring back Fahrenheit, The problem being only those over 40 really knows what it means to have a 85f "scorcher" its only being done as a symbol of "freedom" from the EU loving french.
- cyberferret 7y agoThe author argues against Celsius because it 'feels' wrong? Well, I've grown up with Celsius all my life, and Farenheit just 'feels' wrong to me. Everything is relative. The author deems 35 deg C as being "grossly hot", but that is just the average temperature to me where I live. He calls 0 degrees not even cold, but for me, that is almost unbearably cold. Having a datum of 0 for freezing makes sense, especially for professions like flying (I used to be a pilot). Knowing that you are close to a point when water will turn from liquid to solid can be life saving, and I have no problems with using negatives to determine HOW solid.
- crispinb 7y agoQuite. He's solving a nonexistent problem. Next he'll tell us that English is H. Sapiens' natural language. > I found it annoying to use negative numbers for temperatures that aren't really that cold All Australians understand perfectly well that anything below 20C (or 25 above the Tropic of Capricorn) is cold.
- czechdeveloper 7y ago0 is also very important for driving, camping etc. Water freezing is just so important point.
- kortilla 7y agoMemorizing 32 is not much different than memorizing 0, despite how obvious it seems to the centigrade folks.
- paol 7y agoThe "intuitive" argument comes up a lot in relation to units of measure, and it just makes me wonder how people can have such lack of self awareness. Anything that is familiar is easier, that tells you nothing about the thing itself. This seems so obvious to me I wouldn't even think of basing an argument around it. Is the concept of subjective experience that hard to imagine for some people?
- 7y ago
- Jedd 7y agoThe author lists the importance of a global temperature scale, then shows a map of North America overlaid with some dots. > For many people that's Celsius, but for many others it's Fahrenheit. That second 'many' is disingenuous. For about 90% of the planet's population it's Celsius, and for about 10% it's Fahrenheit. Author also has some pretty arbitrary and bewildering requirements, including wanting a scale of 0 to 100, yet also avoiding any 3-digit numbers. Any claims about 'intuition' are misguided -- Celsius makes more sense because a) most people use it, and b) it maps onto the rest of the SI units. That I happen to feel comfortable at a somewhat arbitrary 21 (c) is not a sufficient or satisfactory reason for other people to let go of deprecated temperature scales.
- OrderlyTiamat 7y agoThe requirements list reads as a description of farenheit, which the author then uses in a roundabout way to conclude his presupposition that farenheit is the better unit.
- acqq 7y ago> For about 90% of the planet's population it's Celsius, and for about 10% it's Fahrenheit. I thought only the US and a few very small countries use Fahrenheit, which is not more than 5% of the world population?
- Freak_NL 7y agoA quick glance at the numbers on Wikipedia puts it a bit under 5%, the bulk of which is inhabitants of the US, but I did leave out the Bahamas for convenience.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dosshell 7y ago> The truth is, outside of a chemistry lab I don't care that much about the freezing and boiling points of water What? Freezing point of water is one of the most important things with temperature outside. Will it snow or rain? Will the lake freeze or melt? Will the road be slippery or not. That is like... the most important thing about temperature and outside. However, I agree that the boiling temperature of water is not much used outside in a daily life.
- Thorrez 7y ago>The truth is, outside of a chemistry lab I don't care that much about the freezing and boiling points of water Even in a chemistry lab, Celsius isn't that great, it's Kelvin that actually has an advantage. And Rankine would be about as good.
- alkonaut 7y agoC goes 90% of the way there because 90% of temperature usage in science is for delta-T. That said, you need to be aware of it so you don't accidentally use the occasional absolute temperature in C at some point.
- Thorrez 7y agoYes, C is useful in science because it's commonly used, not really because of any inherent usefulness. The network effect is the usefulness, and if F had that network effect it would be just as useful.
- dgellow 7y agoA Kelvin temperature is just the Celsius temperature +273°.
- Thorrez 7y agoA Rankine temperature is just the Fahrenheit temperature +459.67°.
- Tepix 7y agoI care very much about the freezing point of water outside. It means ice on the roads.
- Thorrez 7y agoMy point was about in the chemistry lab, not outside.
- 7y ago
- enriquto 7y agoLOL. Do people really still use fahrenheit over there?
- dragonshed 7y agoMore imperial entanglements than you can possibly imagine.
- fanf2 7y agoAmerican customary units are not the same as imperial units. The British imperial reform in the early 1800s altered the volume measures, whereas the US continued using the Queen Anne wine gallon and the Winchester grain bushel.
- IgorPartola 7y agoOr we could just stop this Freedom Units bullshit and be like normal people. It feels wrong is not a reason to keep doing the stupid thing.
- Tepix 7y agoIn practice a difference of 1 degree celsius is slightly noticeable. But given that 1 degree Fahrenheit is only 5/9 degree celsius, do you really care if it‘s 74 or 75F outside?
- kylec 7y agoI can definitely feel the difference between when I set my car to 72F vs 73F (or any pairing of consecutive degrees F)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- williadc 7y agoFahrenheit seems to be a good scale for weather. It would be a pretty simple matter to make a human friendly scale based on Celsius - halve the unit. Freezing is zero degrees, and boiling is 200 degrees. I call this unit Celinheit: Here's how that looks when compared with Fahrenheit: 0F == -35 Ch 10F == -24 Ch 20F == -13 Ch 32F == 0 Ch 40F == 9 Ch 50F == 20 Ch 60F == 32 Ch 70F == 42 Ch 80F == 53 Ch 90F == 64 Ch 100F == 76 Ch 110F == 86 Ch The advantages of this system: * 40-60 would be considered about ideal. * Each 10 degree "band" has a feeling, similar to Fahrenheit. * Converting to metric would be really easy. Disadvantages: * https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- Ndymium 7y ago> The advantages of this system: > > * 40-60 would be considered about ideal. Why would that be an advantage? I consider about 20–25°C ideal. Why is it worse than some other range? > * Each 10 degree "band" has a feeling, similar to Fahrenheit. As a user of the celsius scale, each 10 degree "band" already has a feeling to me.
- hpaavola 7y agoFor everyday use the unit does not matter at all. We could drop numbers completely and just say it's freezing, cold, chilly, ok, warm and hot and be done with it. For cooking we could just use simmer, boil, stew and bake. But Celsius interacts with other units nicely. So when you actually need some precision, Celsius works nicely. Kelvin is of course the one to choose when talking about scientific matters, but Celsius works well enough for everyday things and when precision is needed.
- 0n34n7 7y agoCelsius is much more useful than stipulated here. For example, it takes 1J (Joule) to heat 1g (which is also 1ml) of pure water 1 degree Celsius. The metric system is all weighted and related from temperature to mass to distance. This is what makes it so useful for Science, and frankly, every day use.
- kylec 7y agoPlease provide an example where you need to convert between Joules, grams, and Celsius in "every day use"
- fanf2 7y agoEstimating how long it will take the kettle to boil :-)
- bramblerose 7y agoOne calorie, not one Joule. Water has a specific heat of ~4.2 kJ/kg.
- ericd 7y agoI think a lot of people here are missing the most important point, which is that Fahrenheit roughly maps 0-100 to the most common temperature ranges experienced in daily weather, which is by far the most frequent use of temperature for most people.
- jim-jim-jim 7y agoI think alternative measurements are cute and I encourage their usage simply because they make epic reddit science guys so irrationally mad. The year is Reiwa 1, it's 51° F out, and I weigh 9.92 stone. Deal with it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- burfog 7y agoRankine is even better. (like Fahrenheit plus 459.67°) You get the same step size as Fahrenheit, so you can adjust your house temperature without a decimal. (some of us care) It is also good enough for industrial food processing without that decimal, for example in canneries. You get a correct zero. Fahrenheit and Celsius are just wrong. Think about the meaning of something like "twice as hot", which is a thing people say. With a correct zero, there is no need for negatives unless you are doing quantum physics research. If you aren't convinced, imagine we had a weight scale that used 0 for a very small adult and 100 for a very large adult. All the normal temperatures people deal with, including oven temperatures, are exactly 3 digits. The 3-digit numbers 100 to 999 are like Fahrenheit from -359.67° to 539.33°.
- DonHopkins 7y agoSo why is the metric system based on water, instead of liquid hydrogen? Why not use the most common essential element, instead of some arbitrary compound? Metric seems pretty anthropocentrist to me, since humans are 50-60% water, while the universe is 75% hydrogen. In the Universal Hydrogen Metric system, 0 °H would be -259.2 °C, and 100 °H would be −252.87 °C.
- fxj 7y agotldr; Fahrenheit maps the subjective feeling of very cold to very hot to a scale from 0 to 100. Celsius on the other hand gives you additional information about the state of water at this temperature (0C frozen, 100C boiling). The author didnt talk about the correct physical unit, Kelvin, which tells you about the possibitiy of the temperature (no Kelvin values below 0).
- lukeschlather 7y agoCelsius is pretty easy to wrap my head around, even though I think in Fahrenheit. I think my main argument against Fahrenheit is when I'm cooking and look up food safety information I usually convert to Celsius in my head because I have a pretty intuitive sense of temperatures as a percentage of the boiling point of water but Fahrenheit I really don't. I also don't imagine anyone using Celsius as their "native language" routinely converts to Fahrenheit in their head just to get a better understanding of what a temperature means.
- sys_64738 7y agoI think there are a lot of similarities between F and C as there are with the use of military time. In the US we use AM/PM for civilian use but in England you see them use military time for things like TV show times, and train/bus times. It all seems very regimental.