The US could have switched to the world-wide standard years ago but under Reagan the switch was abandoned.
Celsius makes most sense in places that experience proper winter.
Is it above 0? Then the snow is melting. Is it below 0? Then the melted snow has turned into slippery ice. Have fun!
Hey I’m American and think we should switch to metric. While Celsius has a more objective basis than Fahrenheit, doesn’t seem like the same slam dunk as the other measurements.
Are there applications where we’re measuring in centicelsius or kilocelsius? There aren’t weird non-base ten increments of Fahrenheit. In Fahrenheit 0 is cold and 100 is hot as well…
I’m still fine changing to it, just doesn’t seem to have the same “in your face” value for this graphic.
Yeah, 100°C is pretty warm
0°C = outside the sauna
100°C = inside the sauna
100 degrees is uncomfortably hot for a sauna. Somewhere around 80 is good.
yup, i take baths in 100C regularly bc its warm :3
Well if sauna is considered a bath then yes
The original Fahrenheit system was actually pretty clever. It set 0° at the temperature of brine and 96° at internal body temperature. That made marking a thermometer really easy. Like, ridiculously easy. 96 is divisible by two many times before reaching a decimal.
Because the freezing temperature of water was really close to 32°, the later Fahrenheit system set that as the lower temperature and 212° as the boiling point instead of using body temperature. That made marking a thermometer more difficult, and basically took away Fahrenheit’s only advantage. It was more consistent though. Now Fahrenheit is formally defined based on Kelvin.
Centigrade was originally marked as 100° at the freezing temperature, going down as temperature increases to 0° at the boiling temperature. Obviously that didn’t last long. The downside is that marking a Celsius thermometer depended on atmospheric pressure. Now Celsius is defined based on Kelvin by -273.15° being absolute zero and a degree corresponding to a very specific amount of heat energy increase.
So yeah, Fahrenheit hasn’t made any sense for many many years.
…and the heat energy for 1K stemming from one 1°C
No, it’s ultimately defined in joules.
every 1 K change of thermodynamic temperature corresponds to a change in the thermal energy, kBT, of exactly 1.380649×10−23 joules.
C is even more intuitive than the graphic.
0 = water’s frozen 100 = water’s boiling
I had an American explain “well you just know that 68 is long sleeve warm, 80 is shorts” or something, as if people cannot memorize that 18 is chilly and 21/22 is usual room temperature, 26 is shorts.
The only thing I dislike like about Celsius is that my thermostat supports both, but doesn’t allow half degrees Celsius, so it provides less granular control in Celsius than if you set it to Fahrenheit.
I’m in Québec, -10 is chilly, 14 is shorts :)
I was about to say, in Denmark i definitely have shorts on in the teens, else I’d barely need to own any
Same in Alberta -10 maybe put on a jacket, 14 grab the beers and fire up the BBQ it’s patio time
As you approach 0°F it is getting dangerously cold. As you approach 100°F it’s getting dangerously hot. Celsius is obviously better scientifically, but fahrenheit is pretty reasonable for everyday use (unlike other imperial measurements).
Really my point is you can memorize new numbers when you look at the weather report.
When I go (went ) to the US it was not obvious to me looking at the weather in Fahrenheit what it would feel like.
Of course. I’m just adding that there is some logic to fahrenheit in day to day use.
What I’ll defend, however, is fractional measurements when precision matters.
With decimal measurements, precision can’t be nearly as granular. If your measurement is precise to one 1/8 of a unit, how do you represent that in decimal? 0.625 implies your measurement is precise to the nearest thousandth, but rounding it to 1 also isn’t precise. 5/8, however, tells you the measurement AND the precision.
With fractional measurements, you can specify precision by changing the denominator to any number, whereas decimal is essentially fractional measurements, but with fixed denominator at powers of 10. For instance, a measurements of a half-unit with levels of precision between 0.1 and 0.10, fractional can be 6/12, 7/14, 8/16, 9/18, 10/20, 24/48, etc. Decimal can’t specify that precision without essentially writing a sentance.
What’s simpler to record? “24/48” or “0.5 ± 0.208333…”
When precision matters, that precision is considered in the measurements. You would never put 0.5 ± 0.208333, you express it as 0.50 ± 0.21. The error value is just the standard deviation of the measurements and it doesn’t make sense to use more than 2 significant digits.
Another example would be measuring large distances using a ruler with centimeter precision. In that case, a measurement would be expressed as 250 ± 1 cm. Converting the measurement from cm to mm, it is 2500 ± 10 mm. This is much more cumbersome with inches or feet as changing units means updating the precision, possibly reducing it.
This hurts my brain. Why do we care about all the weird fractions? +/- 0.1 is just another way of saying 1/10. You can still do that if you want without having to do fraction math in random denominators.
My water does not describe 100°C as “warm”
*For some definition of warm
People who say 100°C is warm make my blood boil.
Milk bottles in the supermarkets in the UK are now using weird sizes like 1.136l, because apparently that easier for some old cunt to read.
I’m guessing that the 1.136 L comes from not wanting to change actual package size when switching to metric. Can’t be a coincidence that 1.136L is 2 imperial pints.
It’s not too uncommon for that to happen. The smaller glass Coke bottles are something like 290ml from being converted from flozzies (I think some places have a 355ml one)
You really recognize these weirdly precise numbers in packaging.
355ml. 454g. 25.4mm.
Yeah, suuuuure your chocolate bar is precise to 3 sig figs…
It’s like this in Canada for years, everything in groceries is strange numbers in ml or g, converted from pounds/qt/whatever units
The funnuest argument for farenheit that i keep seeing is: celsius is good for scientific things, but in everyday life, farenheit is better, because it tells you how it FEELS. 60F feels pleasant while 40 is too cold.
The delusion is real, even tge dumbest american can learn new numbers, i believe in you the same way you velive a pedo is gonna save you
This is the same level as “everyone has an accent except for me”
Yes but 69F is nice while 69C is not
69C is hot
It is a very tepid temperature for tea.
I think it’s sort of useful for weather, since in most places you’re not gonna see temperatures under 0F or above 100F much if at all, so the scaling seems a bit easier. Other than that though, yeah, it’s pretty terrible.
Fahrenheit is just a metric measurement of human experience. Why do you hate base ten?
The delusion is real, even tge dumbest american can learn new numbers, i believe in you the same way you velive a pedo is gonna save you
Do not overestimate US Americans: they didn’t manage to prevent him becoming president, twice - with all kind of insane justifications on all sides…
mg, g, kg
What are the others meant to represent?
h = hecto da = deca (had to look that one up) d = deci c = centi
×100, ×10, ÷10, ÷100, respectively
You’ll know centi from centimetres. Decimetres are somewhat common because 1dm³ = 1L. Hectopascal is a common unit of pressure.
- Hectograms - 100 grams
- Dekagrams - 10 grams
- Decigrams - .1 grams
- Centigrams - .01 grams
Nobody uses those in every day conversation.
They will be used in specific contexts, like measuring fluids with syringes where space is limited and accuracy needs to be high.
I had a running gag once with my cheese guy where i would order in hectograms. I probably found it more amusing than he did.
Your cheese guy? You may be doing life better than me.
Certain ones get used a lot, like centimeters and dekapascals.
