4 ms·
This always bugged me too. Fahrenheit is more than double the precision of Celsius. The thermodynamic properties of water just aren't important enough in daily
by larrik 16y ago
This always bugged me too. Fahrenheit is more than double the precision of Celsius. The thermodynamic properties of water just aren't important enough in daily life to make sacrificing that precision seem worth it.
Similarly, measuring things in feet is more precise and easier to me than measuring in meters. Tenth of meters is awkward, and decimeters are just never used colloquially. 5 feet tall vs. 6 feet or 1.5 vs 1.8 meters? Yuck.
- toretore 16y agoThey're awkward for you, like feet and inches are awkward for me. When I hear people say they're "five eight" I have absolutely no idea what that means. People don't say they're "one point seven meters" tall, they say "one seventy four" as in 174cm.
- felxh 16y agocan agree with the first but the second is just silly. In the metric system you would say 1.76m as 'I am one seventy six' just like you would say 'i'm five eight' for 5' 8" in the imperial system.
- mseebach 16y agoUsually people would mention their height in centimeters, such as 183 cm -- which is more precise than feet and inches. But that's not the point. Metric is "better" because it's decimal and since you very often need to perform arithmetic on distances, having them in a format that is easy to do arithmetic on is a good thing. Unless you're doing physics, you'll never do arithmetic on temperatures, and therefore the ability to more intuitively describing the weather is much more valid. For the record, I'm European, and have no intuition of Fahrenheit temperatures. But the guy is actually making a valid point.
- crasshopper 16y agoThe Eric Prinder.com link makes a related point to yours: People often conflate "metric is better" with "Celsius is better".
- alextgordon 16y agoCan you give an example of a situation where the precision given by an integer temperature in °C is insufficient but in °F is sufficient, and which occurs often enough to make adding a decimal inconvenient?
- crasshopper 16y agoAnywhere in the 70's or 80's Fahrenheit.
- alextgordon 16y agoCan you be more specific? For outdoors temperature we would just say 20 or 23. Nobody needs to add a decimal point, because the precision given by Celsius is sufficient.
- _delirium 16y agoFor indoor temperatures, European electronic thermostats seem to use half-degrees C, so you can e.g. set the air conditioner to 22.5. Not really a huge problem, but it's interesting that the size of the European thermostat control increment is around 1 F.
- crasshopper 16y agoYou needed to use two sig figs. Fahrenheit just needs one.
- hlidotbe 16y agoWhen is the "better" precision needed? Because the article itself says low/high 70's. This would translate to 20-25˚C. Who feels the difference between 72 and 73 (22.2222-22.7777˚C)? If you need precision, you will need decimals, in ˚F or in ˚C. And I don't understand what does it mean to "not use all the digits". They are used, not just for the narrow range he cares about which is the comfort zone in his particular region of the world. In Belgium it is between 15˚C and 25˚c all the year with few extremes on either sides. Nobody need 3 digits to tell if it's warm or not.
- petervandijck 16y agoFreezing temperature is important in daily life. It means roads are very slippery, extra caution when driving. Your house may need certain adjustments when it starts to freeze (careful with those pipes!). Etc. Freezing matters.
- michaelcampbell 16y ago> Fahrenheit is more than double the precision of Celsius. How do you figure? For any given interval, say, freezing point to boiling point of water; F is precisely 9/5 the precision of C, no? Which is close to double, but not more than double. Or am I misunderstanding your point?