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Actually, temperature is the only thing which regularly makes me long for the metric system. I used to think celcius was ridiculous until I realized how useful
by cellularmitosis 13y ago
Actually, temperature is the only thing which regularly makes me long for the metric system. I used to think celcius was ridiculous until I realized how useful it was as a tool to intuitively understand large temperatures. Just divide by 100! When I see 2500 F, that number is essentially meaningless to me, but when I see 1400 C, I immediately think "oh, that's like 14 times (freezing to) boiling, that's hot!".
- csense 13y ago> I immediately think "oh, that's like 14 times (freezing to) boiling, that's hot!" You can only say that X is K times as hot as Y if you're using an absolute temperature scale. Here's the ratio of the two absolute temperatures in Python: >>> (1400 - -273.15) / (100 - -273.15) 4.483853678145518 So 1400 C is only about 4.5 times as hot as 100 C. IMHO, the metric temperature scale should have absolute zero at 0 degrees and the freezing point of water at 100 degrees. But due to historical accidents, it...doesn't. Quick question for thermodynamics nerds: Is the mean kinetic energy of molecules in a sample proportional to temperature? I bet it's actually proportional to temperature squared, or at least some power of temperature.