• Khrux@ttrpg.network
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    8 months ago

    I’m not sure I agree with the take for farenheit. It’s an arbitraty choice, and to me who grew up in a country that uses celsius, I find that far easier to understand and farenheit may as well be random numbers to me.

    • C126@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      So humans feel cold at 0F and hot at 100F? I dont think thats true. Humans start quickly dying at something around 32F and 180F. Fahrenheit is complete nonsense. It has nothing to do with humans. And considering humans are mostly water Celsius seems a much better fit.

      • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 months ago

        So humans feel cold at 0F and hot at 100F?

        In aggregate this is absolutely true, though not the point anyone is making.

        Humans start quickly dying at something around 32F and 180F

        Humans will die of dehydration or heat stroke quite quickly at temperatures well below 180F. In fact that’s far hotter than the hottest recorded temp on Earth (~135F/56.7C) (not including human-made environs like a sauna or outliers like an active volcano) so I’m frankly not sure what point your even trying to make here.

        Fahrenheit is complete nonsense. It has nothing to do with humans.

        The latter statement is manifestly false. Fahrenheit was originally supposed to have 90 degrees as the average humans body temp (no clue why 90 and not 100). Due to inaccuracies in measurements of the time, It was later changed to 96 and then 98.7. Still no clue why not just 100, but the fact remains it was based on human body temps. The zero point was selected using the freezing point of a brine mixture. No real defending that one, it was pretty much arbitrary.

        And considering humans are mostly water Celsius seems a much better fit.

        But we aren’t just water. In any case, humans are rarely at boiling temperature. My ideal temp scale would have 0 at water’s freezing point and 100 at a humans body temp.

        • anguo@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          Why base it on human body temperature at all though? That’s only useful when you’re trying to see if you have a fever, and even then that’s a number that varies wildly between people.

          Air temperature is what we most often measure and talk about, and it needs to be far below body temperature to be comfortable.

    • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Fahrenheit measured human body temperature (which he thought was a constant) and called that 96 degrees. We now know normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees F, but back then, his instruments weren’t as accurate. The number 96 was chosen for its divisibility. It has many divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 96), making it easier to mark subdivisions on the thermometer.

      It’s a scale partly defined by human body temperature, which is, I think, the point.

      • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        There are many stories on how Fahrenheit came up with the scale, the body temperature one is just one of many. It’s no more true than the one where he took the Romero scale as baseline and multiplied it by 4 to get rid of the factorial.

    • happyhippo@feddit.it
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      8 months ago

      Same.

      Not to mention that the 0-100 range thingy really depends on local conditions. I mean, depending on where you live, there are parts of the scale you’ll never use.

      I’ve never in my entire life lived in a place where the lowest temp got anything close to 0°F.

      My range of values is more -5°C - 45°C, or 23F - 113F.

      23F for me is already fucking cold, and 100F is nowhere near fucking hot anymore (thank the entire humanity for climate change).

      So whichever scale, for me they’re still just a bunch of numbers. But at least Celsius is used in “science, bitch!”

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Personally I like Fahr better because there’s more resolution

      I’m also really good at guessing the current weather, often to within 1 degree F and 3% humidity

      Also Fahrenhiet 0 just feels more practical to me. Like 20 F isn’t THAT cold for me, but that’s equal to -7 C. In Fahrenheit if I see a negative number I know it’s really fucked outside. A negative Celsius number is often just a “typical” winter day and nothing to care about. Of course this in itself is very eurocentric temperate-centric, same with all the weather map colors that shade in 75F as a “warm” temperature with the color red–like that’s just an extremely comfortable temperature and should be something like green.

      It’s pretty vibes based–but the vibality could be improved

      • teichflamme@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I have never encountered a single situation where having more resolution would have done anything for me.

    • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
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      8 months ago

      “Oh but 100 Fahrenheit means 100/100 on the hot scale, it just makes intuitive sense!”

      WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?? Fahrenheit lovers literally don’t know how ridiculous they sound

      • Waffles@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Nah it’s more like, one degree fahrenheit is the smallest change in temp that the average human can sense.

        • notceps [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          I call bullshit, like yeah I’m sure that’s the smallest degree or whatever, but how ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ something feels is up to way more than just temperature like humidity, wind chill if it’s sunny or cloudy so in a real example I doubt a person can notice the difference between a 66°F and 65°F day because there’s so many other factors. And you know what it is actually really bad at? Telling people when stuff freezes, you think some person from texas or nevada or any place that usually doesn’t get cold enough knows the exact freezing point in fahrenheit? Most people will guess around 30 while pretty much everyone knows that the freezing point of water in celsius is 0°

      • criitz@reddthat.com
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        8 months ago

        What’s not to get lol. Think about when it’s really really cold outside. That’s 0. Think about when it’s really really hot outside. That’s 100.

      • ped_xing [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        When it’s above 100, people who have options for something lower will generally go for them. Similarly for under 0. OK, so as PancakeLegend@mander.xyz pointed out, such sensitivities might be specific to US culture, but theoretically, how much would we have to expand the 0-100 Fahrenheit range so that 0 is too cold for pretty much everyone and 100 is too hot for pretty much everyone? 0 goes to -10, 100 to 140? A new-Fahrenheit degree would still be more precise than a Celsius degree.

        • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
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          8 months ago

          My point is “really hot” and “really cold” are not useful reference points to ascribe to, no matter what numbers you’re using. If i was coming up with a measurement system for brightness and i said 1000 was “really bright” would you be able to tell me anything about 500? No because you literally have no reference frame for what i mean by “really bright”. It’s the same thing when Americans describe Fahrenheit to the rest of the world. You have to experience the data points, and at that point, whether you use 0 to 100, -20 to 40, or 250 to 310, it doesn’t matter. You will just intuitively understand the scale and so there’s no inherent benefit.

      • kot [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Americans just assume their experience is the universal one. They can’t possibly imagine that F might be gibberish to someone who grew with Celsius or that people who grew up with Celsius can intuitive tell how hot something is in Celsius.

    • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Fahrenheit was not an entirely arbitrary choice: it was defined based on two points of reference that could be measured at the time: the freezing temperature of an ammonium chloride brine is used as 0, and the best estimate for the average human body temperature is set at 96.

      Over time, as the freezing point and boiling point of water at sea level atmospheric pressure proves to be more accurate reference points, the Fahrenheit scale was adjusted to provide exact conversion to Celsius.

      • rainynight65@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        Are you telling me they were able to measure those things, but not the boiling and freezing point of water?

        Sure, let me just whip up that ammonium chloride mixture and travel somewhere where I can get it close to freezing so I can know the zero reference of that scale. What, did the just carry that NH₄Cl around for convenience?

        Fahrenheit was proposed in 1724, Celsius dates back to 1742, so there wasn’t that much time between the two.

        • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Boiling point of water varies based on atmospheric pressure, water boils at a lower temperature high up in the mountains, for example, which could be why the estimated human body temperature is set as a standard, because it is consistent to reproduce as long as there are people around.

          The freezing point of water is not affected by atmospheric pressure, however, it is affected by dissolved material in the water. Using a saturate solution of a salt would establish that consistency as well as lower the freezing point to create a bigger temperature range.

            • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              A bit of mistake I made there, I should say that the freezing point is relatively unaffected by pressure compared to the boiling point, and the amount of dissolved impurities are going to have a greater effect.

      • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Fahrenheit was not an entirely arbitrary choice

        it’s not arbitrary, it’s based on the uh, the freezing temperature of uh, ammonium chloride! we’re all familiar with how cold that is! and, and, and, uh, the upper end is, uh … they decided on 96. it’s not arbitrary!!! wojak-nooo

    • Cawifre@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      It makes sense that you find the system you grew up with to be more intuitive, but I grew up with fahrenheit, and I think you’ve misunderstood the assertion a little bit.

      The older observation that this meme is riffing off of is that 100°C is the point at which water stops being sloshy and starts being steamy, whereas 100°F is the (much fuzzier) point at which humans stop moving around and start decomposing.

      The Kelvin addition muddies things because 100K isn’t really significant.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        But there’s numbers below 0 and beyond 100. I don’t know why some are so focused on just those two points

        • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          I feel like 0-100F encompasses most living temperatures in the USA. It’s also a cleaner scale (in terms of human-comfortable temperatures) than 32 to 37.779 in that regard. 0F is the temperature where humans need to make sure they aren’t wet and make sure their drinking water isn’t left outside. 100F is the temperature where we need to be worrying about heat stroke and accelerated dehydration.

          So, making this human-intuitive scale of temperatures a 0-100 range makes it easier to understand for a layperson.

          • anguo@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            32 to 37.779? You just converted 0C to F (backwards) and 100F to Celsius…

            0F is way lower than the temperature water freezes at (32F). Water freezes at 0C.

            Comfortable temperatures are between 22C and 27C, let’s say, which converts roughly to 72F to 80F. None of these are “more intuitive” than the other.

            If I see ice, I know it’s below 0C. If water boils in my pot, I know it reached a temperature close to 100C. Fahrenheit on the other hand is based on completely arbitrary points.

            • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Lmao I’m so dumb, I was very tired and wrote this in a state of “brain please wake up” limbo.

              Point still stands, just 0 to 100 and -17.777 to -37.778

              • anguo@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                Your brain must still be a little tired, because why on earth would you think we would use Fahrenheit’s 0 and 100 as a basis for anything in Celsius?

                I could say the same thing backwards: 0 to 100 C is 32 to 212 F.

                The only reason there aren’t weird decimals there, is because Fahrenheit was later adjusted to have whole numbers at those same (water based) temperatures.

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            in the USA

            Well there’s a bit of a problem with that one…

            It’s also a cleaner scale (in terms of human-comfortable temperatures) than 32 to 37.779 in that regard.

            Cleaner…?

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      100 F is roughly a human’s body temp. (Actually 98.7 avg, but close anyway)

      0 F is goddam cold. (This one’s pretty arbitrary ngl)

      That probably isn’t very helpful.

      Fwiw, Celsius isn’t much better if you didn’t grow up with it. 0 C is pretty cold, 100 C can give you severe scalds. The actual range the people will encounter in weather in their day-to-day lives is all over the place regardless.

      Perhaps we are destined to stay divided

      • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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        8 months ago

        I’m UK based and ~0°c to ~30°c (32-86f) covers 90% of the year for celcius. It’s still pretty unhelpful but I don’t think that feels any harder than using Farenheit in day to day use, I agree that it’s largely all arbitrary, but that’s as good of a reason to just use that one that’s scientifically useful too.

    • imasnyper@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      I grew up in Canada, but in a temperate climate area on the border with the US. Winter? Use Celsius. Summer? Use Fahrenheit. For me Celsius makes a lot more sense right around 0C. After about 15C my brain switches over and starts using Fahrenheit. I like the Fahrenheit scale from 60-100F for gauging the summer months. The Celsius scale isn’t granular enough. It feels like there’s a big difference between 18C and 22C versus the comparable 64F-72F. But I also was taught early a quick and dirty conversion. C to F, double and add 30. F to C subtract 30 and divide by 2.

      • A2PKXG@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        Celsius temperature are often given in steps of 0.5. for temperature records in summer the news report it down to an accuracy of 0.1

        • imasnyper@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          Sure, but my point is 1 step in degrees Fahrenheit, to me at least, is more intuitive than subdividing 1 degree Celsius to get the granularity needed.

        • sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
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          8 months ago

          I made fermented maple syrup a few years ago.

          It tastes like shit. Imagine you take a green branch off a tree and suck on it, then you add alcohol. Bleh.

        • imasnyper@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          Maple syrup literally flows through my veins. My pet polar bear and attack geese protect my vast syrup empire. Headquarters is obviously my igloo.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      I know someone who knows both “natively” and celsius is much more logical to them because 1. kelvin has the same steps as celsius so for any science its much easier 2. freezing is 0 celsius so for weather(the thing you use temperature most commonly for) its really useful. Same with cooking.

    • Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Fahrenheit is roughly a 0-100 scale of “places humans can conceivably live”. 0-100 scales are more intuitive than a scale from like -15 to 40, which is approximately what celsius uses for the temperatures humans can live at.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      Whatever your grew up with will always seem more intuitive for most people. But given that I grew up with Fahrenheit, the whole “0 is cold as fuck, 100 is hot as fuck” thing works for me.

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          Yeah, pretty much. I figured it was probably implied that I’m in the states. :)

          I mean, SI units are objectively the best, and align with metric in most cases, but my brain is conditioned to accept Fahrenheit and miles per hour natively. Celsius and km/h have to go through an interpreter to convert them.

          I have to say though, km/h has that “0 to 100” thing going for it that Fahrenheit does. 100 isn’t the fastest you’ll go, but it’s a typical highway speed.

          • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            8 months ago

            I have to say though, km/h has that “0 to 100” thing going for it that Fahrenheit does. 100 isn’t the fastest you’ll go, but it’s a typical highway speed.

            but we could be using meters per second

          • PancakeLegend@mander.xyz
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            8 months ago

            They’re one of only 3 countries in the world who still use °F, and represent 98% of the population who do so. So it’s basically just America.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Yeah it’s less human based than Celsius since humans survive equally on the sides of 0 (-40 to 40)

    • reminiscensdeus@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      A useful way to think about it (and I think what the OOP is saying) is to think about it as a scale from 0-100. Where 0 is like the coldest humans can deal with and 100 is the hottest humans can deal with. Obviously this isn’t strictly true (it gets to like 115 in death valley) but as an imperfect generalization it’s pretty useful.

        • shea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 months ago

          oof great point, i didn’t think you could convince me to hate farenheit, i was ride or die for the imperial temperature measurement unit until right now

    • Zorque@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      “I grew up with a completely different scale, so this scale makes no sense to me!”

      Well no fucking shit.

      • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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        8 months ago

        I was trying to be polite as to not trigger Americans which generally happens when you critique Imperial measurements. The post makes no sense to me as it assumes that Farenheit is correct for humans to communicate temperature. The post should read.

        Celcius is basically asking water and most humans how hot they feel, Kelvin is basically asking atoms how hot they feel and Farenheit is basically asking me how hot it feels because I didn’t learn the others.

      • joenforcer@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        The United States. We basically pretend that Celsius doesn’t exist in all applications of temperature. Weather, cooking… it’s all in Fahrenheit.