3 ms·
Celsius works better with one of the base materials in the world - water. At sea level 0 degrees water freezes and at 100 degrees it boils. For the same reason
by neverminder 6y ago
Celsius works better with one of the base materials in the world - water. At sea level 0 degrees water freezes and at 100 degrees it boils. For the same reason Celsius works better with metric system. "What feels cold" is not a good base point, because people are different and that feeling also depends on humidity and wind.
- gwd 6y agoThe GP didn't say any of that; they simply said Fahrenheit was "weird". I disagree; Fahrenheit simply human-centric, and once you get used to it, is a lot more practical for day-to-day human experience than celsius. You're pointing out how useful it is when doing science with water. Sure. And since science is important, and it doesn't make much sense to keep two systems around, then yeah, let's go with celsius as the standard. But let's not lose sight fo the fact that we actually are giving up a more human-focused system when we gain this scientifically-focused system.
- neverminder 6y agoSpeaking from the human experience, "0 degrees Celsius means the road could be icy" is more useful than "68 degrees Fahrenheit is normal room temperature", wouldn't you agree?
- gwd 6y ago"The road could be icy" is certainly a useful data point. But "70% of the way from 'wow this is cold' to 'wow this is hot' is a moderately comfortable temperature" seems reasonable to me. (68 is a comfortable temperature for men wearing suits... a better more general temperature is probably 72.)
- boomboomsubban 6y agoThis all puts way too much stock in temperature being what decides if we go "wow this is cold/hot." Wind, humidity, and other assorted factors play too large of a role to value basing our temperature system on it. Zero F with no wind can feel like a nice day compared to zero C with tons of wind.