2 ms·
The boiling point of water may not be very significant to daily human experience, but the freezing point is, at least for people who don't live in the tropics.
by jbotz 4y ago
The boiling point of water may not be very significant to daily human experience, but the freezing point is, at least for people who don't live in the tropics. Celcius does better there than Fahrenheit, doesn't it? What "percent cold" is it in Fahrenheit land?
Also I don't like your argument that "only scientists" care about the boiling point of water because we live in a scientific society and for it to function well it is extremely important that everybody has at least some basic scientific literacy. Having separate temperature scales for scientists and "common folk" is at least one little step away from that goal.
- staunton 4y ago> Having separate temperature scales for scientists and "common folk" is at least one little step away from that goal. so you'd actually prefer to get weather forecasts in Kelvin?
- jbotz 4y agoBiologists and chemists, and yes, of course, meteorologists and climatologists, routinely use Celcius, not Kelvin, in scientific publications. So that's a strawman.
- staunton 4y agoThe point is that scientists use units appropriate to their domain and community. The general public uses units appropriate for their uses. These usually do not coincide. There would be advantages (e.g. for standardization, "science literacy") if they used the same units but it would also be impractical for whichever side adjusts to use the other's units. I believe the advantages of such a switch are very small and the downsides small. Neither scientists nor the general public seem to think this is a problem.