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Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either. I'm not sayin

Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either. I'm not saying it makes a ton of sense, but my only real defense of it. That said, I find negative units rather silly in most measurements, so we should really be using K I think.

seszett 3y ago
> * Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either.* That's your choice though. Outside temperature cannot be measured precisely enough to warrant decimals (it's supposed to be 17.4°C outside but who can tell the difference with 17°C or 18°C...) but my car's A/C is set to 21.5°C and my home's heating is set to 19.5°C.
- silisili 3y ago
  I figure C is like F for cooking, correct me if I'm wrong. Everything is a multiple of 5, you'll never see bake at 372F or something odd. If C is the same way, that's probably pretty restricting.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Every recipe I've seen has the oven temperature as a multiple of 20°C. Ovens aren't accurate enough for measuring 5°C, let alone 2.5°C. (Ignoring badly-translated American recipes which call for 179°C and 454.5g of potatoes.) For air temperature, my behaviour wouldn't change at all if someone told me it is 18±0.25°C rather than the normal 18±0.5°C. We could round to the nearest 2° and it would be fine.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      Get a cheap IR thermometer. For both ovens and rooms, you can use it to see that the temperature varies by up to a few degrees C from top to bottom. > badly-translated American recipes which call for 179°C and 454.5g of potatoes This drives me up the wall .. but a lot of UK goods are sold in "metric-numbered imperial sizes". At the weekend I bought 450g (half lb) of meat and a 6.3mm (1/4") router bit.
lionkor 3y ago
K is nice because between any X K and Y K such that 2*X = Y, the energy needed to go from one to the other doubles, too. You don't have this with C. 100°C -> 200°C is not 2x the energy.
- mdturnerphys 3y ago
  It's not just nice for that reason, that's the reason the scale exists.
- codethief 3y ago
  Strictly speaking, that's not true. There might be phase transitions (which require additional energy) or the material's specific heat capacity might change with temperature, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity .
mbork_pl 3y ago
> we don't use decimals in either Measuring body temperature with precision of 0.1°C is very common. In fact, I never saw an integer in this context.
- silisili 3y ago
  Same in F. Apologies for ambiguity, I was referring to 'cooking or weather' by the word either, not 'C or F.'

seszett 3y ago

> * Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either.* That's your choice though. Outside temperature cannot be measured precisely enough to warrant decimals (it's supposed to be 17.4°C outside but who can tell the difference with 17°C or 18°C...) but my car's A/C is set to 21.5°C and my home's heating is set to 19.5°C.

silisili 3y ago
I figure C is like F for cooking, correct me if I'm wrong. Everything is a multiple of 5, you'll never see bake at 372F or something odd. If C is the same way, that's probably pretty restricting.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Every recipe I've seen has the oven temperature as a multiple of 20°C. Ovens aren't accurate enough for measuring 5°C, let alone 2.5°C. (Ignoring badly-translated American recipes which call for 179°C and 454.5g of potatoes.) For air temperature, my behaviour wouldn't change at all if someone told me it is 18±0.25°C rather than the normal 18±0.5°C. We could round to the nearest 2° and it would be fine.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Get a cheap IR thermometer. For both ovens and rooms, you can use it to see that the temperature varies by up to a few degrees C from top to bottom. > badly-translated American recipes which call for 179°C and 454.5g of potatoes This drives me up the wall .. but a lot of UK goods are sold in "metric-numbered imperial sizes". At the weekend I bought 450g (half lb) of meat and a 6.3mm (1/4") router bit.

lionkor 3y ago

K is nice because between any X K and Y K such that 2*X = Y, the energy needed to go from one to the other doubles, too. You don't have this with C. 100°C -> 200°C is not 2x the energy.

mdturnerphys 3y ago
It's not just nice for that reason, that's the reason the scale exists.
codethief 3y ago
Strictly speaking, that's not true. There might be phase transitions (which require additional energy) or the material's specific heat capacity might change with temperature, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity .

mbork_pl 3y ago

> we don't use decimals in either Measuring body temperature with precision of 0.1°C is very common. In fact, I never saw an integer in this context.

silisili 3y ago
Same in F. Apologies for ambiguity, I was referring to 'cooking or weather' by the word either, not 'C or F.'