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from the There's-nothing-hotter-than-ITS-90 dept.
At face value, measuring the temperature using Celsius instead of Fahrenheit seems to make sense. After all, the freezing point of water in Celsius is a perfect 0 degrees C — not that inexplicable 32 degrees, as in Fahrenheit. Also, the boiling point of water in Celsius is right at 100 degrees (Okay, 99.98, but what's a couple hundredths of a degree among friends?), instead of the awkward 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
But Fahrenheit may be the best way to measure temperature after all. Why? Because most of us only care about air temperature, not water temperature.
Celsius is great for measuring the temperature of water. However, we're human beings who live on dry ground. As a result, it's best to use a temperature gauge that's suited to the air, as opposed to one that's best used for water. This is one reason why Fahrenheit is superior.
Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit — a 130-degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from -28.8 degrees to 43.3 degrees — a 72.1-degree range. This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale.
A precise reading of temperature is important to us because just a little variation can result in a perceivable level of discomfort. Most of us are people who are easily affected even by even slight changes in the thermometer, and the Fahrenheit scale is more sensitive to those changes.
It seems the author is saying that nobody uses fractions of degrees in day-to-day life, so Fahrenheit is a better scale because it has smaller increments. I'm not sold on this, because you'll get the same temperature variation within a room whether you set your air-conditioning system to 21°C or 70°F, and people will complain that they prefer the room to be a bit warmer/cooler/whatever.
Does anyone here have another reason for advocating the continued use of the Fahrenheit scale ?
(Score: 2) by andersjm on Thursday July 27 2017, @07:44PM (12 children)
And that's really all there is to it. Whatever you go with, you'll get used to it.
But I do want to thank the author for this:
I needed a good laugh today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:01PM (11 children)
Not true.
I grew up with feet/inches/miles, and can say without reservation that meter/centimeter/millimeter/kilometer is better.
I still don't actually remember how many feet there are in a mile, something like 5,000?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:30PM
Statute mile (5280 ft) or nautical mile (6000 ft)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @08:52PM (1 child)
Fahrenheit is easy to remember: it's half a circle to go between the freezing point and boiling point of water, exactly 180 degrees.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:31PM
Sorry, but half a circle is pi. Stop using those stupid imperial degrees! ;-)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 27 2017, @10:18PM (7 children)
I grew up with feet/inches/miles, and can say without reservation that meter/centimeter/millimeter/kilometer is better.
For the most part, I agree. But miles are better if you're walking long distances: one mile is equal to 1000 paces (of an Imperial Roman soldier). So you can pretty easily count rough miles as you walk.
As an American who grew up with US units mostly, the one I really hate is liquid measure. The "fluid ounce" is the stupidest unit I can think of (even worse, it shares a name with the "ounce" of weight, even though it's entirely different). I don't even know how many are in a gallon, pint, etc. I wish they'd abandon that stupid unit completely (and the pints and quarts and gallons too) and just switch to liters. Ounces of weight are annoying too, since there's 16 in a pound, but at least there you generally only need two: ounces and pounds, unless you're measuring really really big things where you might need tons (and the conversion there is easy at least: 2000 lbs per ton).
So in summary, if I could single-handedly force America to change one, but only one, system of measures to metric, it would be the fluid/volume measures. The weight ones aren't that bad, the length ones are workable and have their good points, and the temperature one I actually prefer, but the volume measurements are just a big pain in the ass.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday July 28 2017, @12:43AM (4 children)
Nobody counts 5000 paces and says about 5 miles. They count 1000 paces, and tick off a mile, and start over. You can just as easily do km the same way... if 1000 paces is a mile 620 paces is a km. Count to 620, tick off a km, and start over. Just as easy.
Ah... but 1000 is a nice round number? We're really not going there right? :)
FWIW anybody even slightly serious would use an adjustment, based on their height. For example, if you are 5'10 it's on average 2155 steps (1075 paces) etc... so they'll be counting 1075 paces to a mile. That's no more round than 665 paces to a km (also height adjusted). And anyone serious will likely have counted out a few miles against mile markers and know their personal average... which won't be a round number.
But the bigger question is, who really has such an empty mind that they would spend their day counting paces??
And anyone using a step counter or gadget assist, will have the gadget simply estimate either unit on its own; likely factoring in height, as well steps over time to get a better reckoning.
I agree with you about volume measurements though they're a mess. But its worse even than you mentioned... dry vs wet, imperial vs UK; a pint is meaningless without a lot of context.
Imperial pint is 568 mL, the US liquid pint is 473 mL, while the dry pint is 551 mL; and in some metric countries, for beer marketing they just use 500 mL; in Quebec a pint (un pinte) is an imperial quart... which is 2 pints; and the nonsense extends to ounces, gallons...too. And then they have volume also as cubic linear units... as in how many fluid ounces in a cubic inch?
Perhaps, the biggest reason to go metric is the units are at least an international standard. There is no way to fix imperial / english / USA measurements, because even if tomorrow they all agreed and standardized on one pint = X never going to happen; but even if it did we'd still spend the rest of our lives clarifying whether it was an international standard pint, or a pre-2017 USA pint... and converting between them.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 28 2017, @02:17AM (3 children)
Ah... but 1000 is a nice round number? We're really not going there right? :)
It's important that it's a nice round number; it's easier to write: the number of paces in a mile is 'M', rather than something weird like 'DCXX'.
FWIW anybody even slightly serious would use an adjustment, based on their height. For example, if you are 5'10 it's on average 2155 steps (1075 paces) etc
Wrong. When you're marching, everyone has the same pace. And Roman soldiers likely were not 5'10", probably more like 5'5".
But the bigger question is, who really has such an empty mind that they would spend their day counting paces??
Roman soldiers, that's who. :-)
And anyone using a step counter or gadget assist,
Romans didn't have such things.
Yeah, these days it's really not that useful, but at the time it probably was. The entire reason a "mile" has that name is because it comes from "mil", which is Latin for 1000 (also, where "million" came from, before they added 3 more zeroes), and it was the distance the Roman Army marched in 1000 paces. The Romans were probably sticklers for that kind of thing, so their marched miles were probably reasonably accurate.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday July 28 2017, @04:08AM (2 children)
Touché.
Ok once upon a time a mile being a 1000 paces was a useful metric; but I don't think it really holds much value today.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 28 2017, @07:15AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 28 2017, @04:32PM
Indeed. I'd say a more useful heuristic distance would be either "1 minute's walk" or "10 minute's walk
I completely disagree. That might be OK if you're talking about Roman soldiers who are all trained to march in formation, at the same speed, but for normal people it's useless. Personally I walk 2-3 times as fast as some people (esp. old people...). I can cover far more ground in 10 minutes than some 300-pound short person. That really isn't a useful measure at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @12:52AM
The problem with traditional units is there are so many arbitrary and incompatible versions. Look up the mile or the pound in wikipedia and you'll see every country had a different definition. Within a single country, conversions between units in order to do scientific measurement is a nightmare of random constants that need to be added, subtracted, or multiplied. For the sake of scientific teaching alone, you should not advocate for the changing of just one measurement scheme; instead you should change the whole lot to SI in one go.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 28 2017, @12:53AM
The US Army marches in KM. Typically walk a 100m (meter) stretch a bunch a times while counting your paces. Everyone has a different stride length. I march 100m in 69 paces as counted from left foot to left foot (with no pack and flat terrain). Maps are in 1 KM grid squares so it is pretty easy to navigate long distances. http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/Prep_For_Basic_Training/Prep_for_basic_land_navigation/determine-the-grid-coordi.shtml [armystudyguide.com]
Though vehicles still drive in miles per hour and consume gallons of fuel, so...
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