3 ms·

from the other side: 50F? is that cold or really hot? whats 100? will 0 kill me? i have no idea the numbers are random. 50C? oh that is halfway from frozen to b

from the other side: 50F? is that cold or really hot? whats 100? will 0 kill me? i have no idea the numbers are random. 50C? oh that is halfway from frozen to boiling. 5C? water is nearly freezing. 0C its frozen better watch out for ice on the road (because you do realize you can't easily see blackice on roads?) what temp in F does water even freeze at? i have no idea. boil? ditto some random numbers. Fahrenheit gives you nothing over Celsius and makes literally no sense unless you grew up with it. it does not "align with human senses" in any real meaningful way - the numbers are random and only feel right to you as its what you are used to, just like anyone who grew up with Celsius has adjusted to those numbers, while also getting all the benefits of a logical scale. Celsius is logical, easy to grasp, provides a number of benefits in many applications, and used by 95% of the people on this planet.

peteradio 3y ago
No, its not logical because we don't spend most our time doing science experiments. We do spend most of our time fighting the elements to survive. If you are confined to a hemisphere at average latitude you will see 95 percentiles between 0 and 100F (i.e. we fix the endpoints to human sensory perception thats why 50F is not some unimaginable value) and if you are outside those values then beware. That is a much more useful scale for 99.9% of humans outside of science. If you are in science/engineering and fuck up the conversion then probably you should get out of science/engineering.
- katbyte 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure fighting the elements to survive includes knowing when and how close one is to water freezing, and water boiling. So I’ve yet to hear a good argument for why Fahrenheit is better here, it does not really “relate to humans”. Humans regularly sense, encounter, and use temperatures above 100F so that is not the “endpoint of human sensory perceptions” and in the northern areas going before 0F is common. Not to mention you fridges freezer likely goes below 0F and again you sure can feel the difference between -10c and -20c
  - peteradio 3y ago
    You've already lost the point if you are talking about interaction with human instruments like freezers. The point is about percentiles of typical weather experience. If you are getting scalded by boiling water I doubt a thermometer on the centigrade would have saved ya.
    - katbyte 3y ago
      you are the one making claims like "the 0F to 100F scale matches human senses" not me. I am only pointing out that on both sides of the scale it is exceeded. Now you are moving the goal post to limit it to weather? every walk on hot sand or rock thats been in the sun all day. so air temperature? where that also doesn't match the natural weather in places all over the globe. so whats next "it matches the typical weather experience of these states in the US therefore its.. better" ? because many states will experience -F and over 100F. gotta say i do find the mental gymnastics used to defend F pretty funny

peteradio 3y ago

No, its not logical because we don't spend most our time doing science experiments. We do spend most of our time fighting the elements to survive. If you are confined to a hemisphere at average latitude you will see 95 percentiles between 0 and 100F (i.e. we fix the endpoints to human sensory perception thats why 50F is not some unimaginable value) and if you are outside those values then beware. That is a much more useful scale for 99.9% of humans outside of science. If you are in science/engineering and fuck up the conversion then probably you should get out of science/engineering.

katbyte 3y ago
I’m pretty sure fighting the elements to survive includes knowing when and how close one is to water freezing, and water boiling. So I’ve yet to hear a good argument for why Fahrenheit is better here, it does not really “relate to humans”. Humans regularly sense, encounter, and use temperatures above 100F so that is not the “endpoint of human sensory perceptions” and in the northern areas going before 0F is common. Not to mention you fridges freezer likely goes below 0F and again you sure can feel the difference between -10c and -20c
- peteradio 3y ago
  You've already lost the point if you are talking about interaction with human instruments like freezers. The point is about percentiles of typical weather experience. If you are getting scalded by boiling water I doubt a thermometer on the centigrade would have saved ya.
  - katbyte 3y ago
    you are the one making claims like "the 0F to 100F scale matches human senses" not me. I am only pointing out that on both sides of the scale it is exceeded. Now you are moving the goal post to limit it to weather? every walk on hot sand or rock thats been in the sun all day. so air temperature? where that also doesn't match the natural weather in places all over the globe. so whats next "it matches the typical weather experience of these states in the US therefore its.. better" ? because many states will experience -F and over 100F. gotta say i do find the mental gymnastics used to defend F pretty funny