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Celsius may be better for chemistry. Fahrenheit is better for real life
- stephengillie 11y agoBasically, the argument boils down to 2 points: 1. Fahrenheit is more granular, by design 2. Americans are used to Fahrenheit and learning new things is not cognitively free. Fahrenheit, as a scale, was created in a similar fashion to Celsius. But then the Fahrenheit scale was multiplied by 4. Like Celsius, Fahrenheit starts at freezing and boiling points - of brine (salt water), not pure water. This gives a lower freezing point (and boiling point?). Then that output was multiplied by 4, giving us the scale we have today. My preferred solution is a compromise -- create a new temperature scale that is just Celsius multiplied by 4. On this scale: * Water freezes at 0 degrees * A nice room temperature is 80 degrees * Water boils at 400 degrees * Your oven dial would run from 260 degrees to 1040 degrees.
- amyjess 11y agoWell, the main argument I saw in the OP, which I've been advocating among friends for a while, is that in Fahrenheit, 0-100° is the difference between a cold day and a hot day, which makes it more ideal for "what's the weather like today?". With Celsius, on the other hand, you're not going above 40°, and thus so much of that 0-100° space is useless for real life.
- stephengillie 11y agoAnd how would you feel about the new scale I proposed? It gives you the scale you want and it's easier to convert to scientific scales like Celsius and Kelvin.