3 ms·
Having negative numbers for when water is in a different state is quite a convenient representation, especially for weather. To follow your scale, -50ºC is real
by athenot 7y ago
Having negative numbers for when water is in a different state is quite a convenient representation, especially for weather. To follow your scale, -50ºC is really cold (polar weather) and +50 is really hot (desert weather). Yes there are places hotter and colder but it's a continuum with convenient points that stick out less than a phase change of the liquid which is so integral to life, be it human, fauna or flora.
- philwelch 7y agoEven -40°C is very far outside the range of where virtually anybody lives, though. It's equivalent to -40°F. Most places never reach that temperature. The problem with a 100-degree scale centered around the freezing point of water is that the freezing point of water actually is approximately 1/3 of the way along the scale between "exceptionally cold" and "exceptionally hot"--it isn't a midpoint--and so by the time you reach -50°C you're solidly in the realm of "potentially record-setting low temperature for most places on Earth". The more analogous range is -20°C to 40°C, and that's with 2-3 degrees of rounding on both sides. The freezing point of water is an important temperature, but it's not a temperature that should be treated as being "off the scale" or even at the edge of the scale, which is what the number 0 implies. Being able to represent most survivable air temperatures with unsigned 2-digit numbers is more convenient than not having to remember the freezing point of water, as is the heuristic of any exception to that rule representing an exceptional weather condition.