5 ms·
Fahrenheit is the superior measure
by nmoon 16d ago
Fahrenheit is the superior measure
- WarmWash 16d agoBetter for day to day life, worse for science and engineering.
- msm_ 16d agoIs it really better for day to day life? I am certain that it only appears so because you're used to it. I think for day to day life they're both roughly equivalent. Of course, for me Celsius is more natural and intuitive, but again - that's because I'm used to it.
- antif 16d ago100F is about peak summer heat; 0F is about peak winter chills. Works great for describing weather .. in various places.
- deleted 16d ago[deleted]
- jjtheblunt 16d agoArizona says "hold my boiling beer".
- yencabulator 15d agoI have slept in a tent in -31 F, what is this "peak winter chills" you claim to speak of?
- WarmWash 16d agoYou can basically put a "%" after a fahrenheit temperature and read it as "percentage of a really hot day" and you'll get a pretty good idea what it feels like outside. It's pretty well calibrated as a 0-100 scale for human temperature perception.
- esperent 16d agoI moved from a cold climate to a tropical climate and let me assure you there's no human universal understanding of what's comfortably hot or cold, definitely not to the point of putting a percentage on it. I can walk around in a T-shirt and shorts at 17C (62f) while locals will be wrapping up in scarves and talking about how freezing it is. Meanwhile they'll be fairly comfortable at 35C (95f), at least if the humidity isn't high, and I'll be stuck in with the AC blasting. So in other words Fahrenheit is a western centric measurement (or at least, temperature climate centric), while Celsius is universal.
- nkrisc 16d agoThe subjective experience doesn’t really matter because many places in the US will experience a 100 degree F range over an entire year. So it’s not the “comfortable range” but the actual range you’ll get in many parts of the US (whether you like it or not).
- WarmWash 16d agoRight, but "room temperature" is pretty universal everywhere because we are going with the "average human" rather than "outliers exist and maybe feel differently"
- esperent 16d agoNo it's not. Room temperature in tropical countries is often 26-30C. I work in the food industry and this whole "room temperature" thing is a major bugbear for me actually because when so much food dates markings are designed around a room temperature of ~22C, it's a big health and safety issue for people (and shops, warehouses, restaurants) who don't know that and happily store the goods up to the date marking at 30C. Deciding that room temperature ~=22C and basing worldwide food safety on that is absolutely Western centric. Obviously people here are not stupid and don't store meat etc. past when it's gone bad. But I've often bought e.g. oils from suppliers and it's clear that it's on the edge of rancidity even though it's got a year+ to go on the date because it's been stored at "room temperature".
- 13d ago
- SpecialistK 16d agoIt's just how some Americans justify this particular measurement system. As you said: it's what you're used to. I know 100F is a very warm day, but if someone said it was 50F I wouldn't intrinsically know how warm or cold that is. My brain works in Celsius, so someone saying its 20C I understand instantly. Similarly length in US football fields - I don't know what that is, but it's second nature to someone who did grow up using them as a measurement.
- konart 16d ago>Better for day to day life It is not.
- jandrewrogers 16d agoKelvin is superior for science and engineering but doesn't arbitrarily anchor the scale to the freezing and boiling point of water in the way Celsius and Fahrenheit both do. 273.15 Kelvin doesn't roll off the tongue like 0°C or 32°F.
- RajT88 16d ago32°F and 212°F roll off the tongue?
- jandrewrogers 16d agoRelatively speaking? Yes. Also, the layman rarely needs to know the boiling point of water. The freezing point is useful though. For serious scientific and engineering applications the freezing and boiling point of water isn't actually 0°C and 100°C in most real scenarios.
- hibbelig 16d agoDoesn’t almost everybody cook? With boiling water?
- roryirvine 15d agoYeah, but you don't need a thermometer for that. Using zero as the freezing point of water makes sense for everyday use, and using the boiling point for 100 degrees does follow fairly naturally from that - but plenty of other potential reference points could have worked equally well. That said, for all the American claims of "fahrenheit is more human", 100 °C is the temperature of a hot sauna so works much better as "the highest temperature you'll encounter in day to day life" than 100 °F.
- RajT88 14d ago> "fahrenheit is more human" This is among the least stupid claims us Americans make in defense of our measurement system.
- rf15 16d agocounterpoint: it doesn't matter, since you need to learn relevant boiling/freezing temperatures on both scales anyway. As a european: F is the only american system that is easy to use and reason with (considering its 0-100 range is spanning the "doable" temp range of too-cold to too-hot), unlike other imperial systems for lengths and whatnot.
- t-writescode 16d agoI would argue feet and inches are pretty good too, since there’s a foot on your body, and a thumb, too, for inches. Weight, mass and considerable distances, I’ll grant you, though.
- dryrun 15d agolet me show you the size difference between my wife's thumb and mine, and let's debate again.
- t-writescode 15d agoI feel like you’re intentionally misrepresenting me. I’m obviously talking about number sense, mental visualization, etc.
- deagle50 16d agoreally is, and I grew up in celsius.