SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2017, @10:28PM (3 children)
Its less binary than appears.
I lived in a bachelor pad in the extreme north where we needed air conditioning about two weeks a year, aka no central air. So my AC themostat was calibrated 1 to 9. Yes it was so cheap it didn't even do up to 10, much less 11. Also hilariously you increased the number on the thermostat to cool the room...
My stove burners are calibrated in essentially 1 to 9 where 1 is lo and 9 is hi. I'd pay some money for temp calibration such that "lo" isn't some known temp but is some safe value above 165F (USDA theoretically food safe temp, long story about that BTW) and I'd like to be able to set below 325 to prevent browning or just over 325 to brown but not incinerate the coating on my cast iron fry pans. In fact a preset temp for fry oil would be nice. How about a preset 145F or so to melt chocolate (I'm not a chocolatier so I'm not certain if thats exactly correct but its probably close) I'm not aware in the USA of a stovetop that can be set to a temp as opposed to a percentage of total output.
I'm told in UK land they don't have baking thermostatic controlled ovens like in the USA, so we set a thermostat to 325 to heat up a chicken taco casserole or WTF and believe it or not my stove is within 10 degrees usually. But in the UK they use "gas jet numbers" or some whackiness so my casserole would be gently warmed to just under browning temps using a gas jet #7a or WTF. Perhaps the UK coworker was pulling my leg (which probably means something else in the UK...) or perhaps he was a pitiful excuse for a chef, or maybe his weird story was true.
I have a Kenmore fridge that goes 1 to 7 for fridge and freeze and suggests for food safety to only use setting 4. So WTF is that and why does the control even exist if the only food safe configuration is "4" for both fridge and freeze? Why can't I dial in 39 mother Fing GD degrees F if I want instead of "4"? Does "4" = 40 F in which case 1 implies 10F and 7 implies 70F fridge? Just a steaming pile of WTF.
In my "lab" "workshop" WTF you call it, I have a bachelor pad mini-fridge with various beverages in it. Most of my hobbies involve things that would rip me limb from limb or electrocute me so I don't keep ethanol in it, various canned teas and energy drinks and stuff like that. Also I keep my favorite water bottle in there because sometimes I like icy cold water. Anyway it has a semi-circle with 4 hash marks to set the thermostat. I fooled around until it stopped freezing water and use a sharpie pen to mark the position. 4 hash marks, wtf. No electronics in this bad boy, bimetallic element and a motor, its pretty old. I also store solder paste and cyanoacralyte adhesives in it kept kinda separate from the drinkables.
In a world of fifty cent microcontrollers and cheap software it shouldn't matter, although in the example of my fridge lazy programmers mean you don't even get F or C degrees you get 1 to 7 on the fridge, 1 to 9 on the AC, and lo, seven dots, and hi on the stove top.
(Score: 1) by anotherblackhat on Thursday July 27 2017, @11:13PM
My shower water goes from "C" to "H".
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday July 28 2017, @10:33AM
I'm told in UK land they don't have baking thermostatic controlled ovens like in the USA, so we set a thermostat to 325 to heat up a chicken taco casserole or WTF and believe it or not my stove is within 10 degrees usually. But in the UK they use "gas jet numbers" or some whackiness so my casserole would be gently warmed to just under browning temps using a gas jet #7a or WTF. Perhaps the UK coworker was pulling my leg (which probably means something else in the UK...) or perhaps he was a pitiful excuse for a chef, or maybe his weird story was true.
It certainly used to be that ovens used Gas Mark [wikipedia.org]. I saw one once at uni, the oven could be cheaper, it just controlled the flow of gas.
The ovens in the houses I've lived in aside from that have been thermostat controlled fan ovens. Set the temperature to 180, it goes on, after a while the light goes off, then goes on again later, keeping the temperature inside about the same. Most go upto 250.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday July 28 2017, @01:55PM
Gas mark numbers are only used on gas ovens. Electrically operated ovens here are marked in Celsius (or sometimes Celsius and Fahrenheit).
My impression is that gas ovens are going the way of the dodo. The only gas oven I've ever seen was in an off-grid holiday house on Bardsey Island [wikipedia.org], where there was also a gas-powered fridge and gas-powered table lamps.