4 ms·

I’m legitimately surprised by this idea - surely people in countries that use Fahrenheit don’t go around saying things like “Oh I thought it was going to be 54

I’m legitimately surprised by this idea - surely people in countries that use Fahrenheit don’t go around saying things like “Oh I thought it was going to be 54 degrees but it’s actually 55, so much different!” I’ve grown up with Celsius and never felt the need to use decimals in day to day weather discussion… Many air conditioners let you go up by half a degree C and that’s more than enough precision, more than I’ve ever felt was necessary in everyday conversation.

ghaff 1y ago
So why do those air conditioners go up and down by half a degree C rather than a full degree if people don't care about precision? Never seen an F degree thermostat do stuff in half degrees.
andrewflnr 1y ago
1 degree F is right on the borderline of detectability, and in my opinion that's just right. FWIW I do make single degree changes to the AC reasonably often and notice the difference. That might be due in part to convection nonsense in my house, but that's arguably another argument in favor of that level of precision being useful in practice. I can believe centigrade-and-a-half works fine too, but that doesn't itself undermine the idea that F is kind of handy, with that tiny bit less bother. Again, not saying F is great, just that that one minor advantage is in fact real.
matwood 1y ago
On the edges, absolutely. 66F is comfortable working temperature for me. 65F is too cold and I will start to shiver.
Y_Y 1y ago
Oddly the same system that's enamoured with measurements like "sixty-fourths of an inch" can't countenance the sort of witchcraft entailed in "half a degree Celsius"
- ghaff 1y ago
  Eighth of an inch is about the limit of precision in most circumstances. Countries that use Imperial for day to day use still do tend to use metric for a lot of purposes including many engineering tasks. (Imperial is terrible for certain types of engineering calculations--especially involving pounds and lets not get into slugs--but it's fine for cooking even if I tend to use grams for weight on my scale when baking.) "Imperial countries" are actually pretty hybrid for the most part to greater or lesser degrees. UK is more SI than the US but they still commonly use a lot of Imperial units including some "odd" stuff like stones.
  - Y_Y 1y ago
    I presume if you think eighths of an inch is good enough then you mostly work with large objects. Luckily outside of USA, Liberia, and Myanmar inch-based scales are rare nowadays, but I still come across specifications in small fractions of inches for such things as manufacturing tolerances, drill bits, coating thickness, cable diameters. Informal measurement of humans and beer is a nice quirk of the UK system, but in my experience it's not commonplace to use imperial units for anything where accuracy is important (except maybe jewellers, and arguably road speeds/distances). See also, the monstrosity that is AWG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  No one here is defending inches. In particular I don't think anyone is "enamored" with 64ths. We all agree they're a pain.

ghaff 1y ago

So why do those air conditioners go up and down by half a degree C rather than a full degree if people don't care about precision? Never seen an F degree thermostat do stuff in half degrees.

andrewflnr 1y ago

1 degree F is right on the borderline of detectability, and in my opinion that's just right. FWIW I do make single degree changes to the AC reasonably often and notice the difference. That might be due in part to convection nonsense in my house, but that's arguably another argument in favor of that level of precision being useful in practice. I can believe centigrade-and-a-half works fine too, but that doesn't itself undermine the idea that F is kind of handy, with that tiny bit less bother. Again, not saying F is great, just that that one minor advantage is in fact real.

matwood 1y ago

On the edges, absolutely. 66F is comfortable working temperature for me. 65F is too cold and I will start to shiver.

Y_Y 1y ago

Oddly the same system that's enamoured with measurements like "sixty-fourths of an inch" can't countenance the sort of witchcraft entailed in "half a degree Celsius"

ghaff 1y ago
Eighth of an inch is about the limit of precision in most circumstances. Countries that use Imperial for day to day use still do tend to use metric for a lot of purposes including many engineering tasks. (Imperial is terrible for certain types of engineering calculations--especially involving pounds and lets not get into slugs--but it's fine for cooking even if I tend to use grams for weight on my scale when baking.) "Imperial countries" are actually pretty hybrid for the most part to greater or lesser degrees. UK is more SI than the US but they still commonly use a lot of Imperial units including some "odd" stuff like stones.
- Y_Y 1y ago
  I presume if you think eighths of an inch is good enough then you mostly work with large objects. Luckily outside of USA, Liberia, and Myanmar inch-based scales are rare nowadays, but I still come across specifications in small fractions of inches for such things as manufacturing tolerances, drill bits, coating thickness, cable diameters. Informal measurement of humans and beer is a nice quirk of the UK system, but in my experience it's not commonplace to use imperial units for anything where accuracy is important (except maybe jewellers, and arguably road speeds/distances). See also, the monstrosity that is AWG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge
andrewflnr 1y ago
No one here is defending inches. In particular I don't think anyone is "enamored" with 64ths. We all agree they're a pain.