this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 134 points 10 months ago (117 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If only there was something more specific that a wider range of people could relate to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Something more specific than how humans relate to the temperature? Why would that be useful? If you're doing science, you should use Celsius. If you're a regular human being, being affected by temperature, you should use fahrenheit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It would be useful because it gives multiple specific and relatable reference points. How is that not useful?

The way humans relate to the temperature has a huge range and so very vague. Do you say that 0 is when you swap shorts for trousers? Or when you put a hoody on? Or is it when your neighbour puts their hoody on? Or when your friend from Texas puts their hoody on?

It's like when you come across a recipe that calls for a knob of butter. Everyone's knob is a different size, we've just agreed to say that whatever it is, it's enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It doesn't matter what other people think about the temperature, it only matters what you think. Fahrenheit is useful in the same sense the word Red is useful: you and I could be seeing totally different colors that we call red, but it doesn't matter because we both point to the same objects as being red.

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