• Instigate@aussie.zone
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    8 hours ago

    Why water

    Because it’s one of the most abundant resources available on earth that is imperative to our understanding of the existence of life and is the commonest solution regularly used by humans in scenarios where temperature is a relevant factor.

    why sea level?

    Because vast swathes of humanity live at or near sea level, where we already arbitrarily nominate the level of atmospheric pressure to be 1 ATM.

    While K has a natural zero-point, the gradation (by your logic) is entirely arbitrary as well because it’s based on C and not some other cosmological constant.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      I know why water was chosen. Brine also has characteristics that are useful. My point was that it’s just one (specific version of a) molecule at one specific altitude, and pressure varies, so there is no true “sea level pressure”. It is not a concrete thing where zero means zero.

      Metric I love. C is not metric though. It’s an SI unit, but not metric, as often as those are conflated. It doesn’t have any fundamental advantage over F.