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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: 4, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday July 27 2017, @10:55PM (1 child)
I grew up using Fahrenheit. In my 20s we went metric; took less than a week to forget Fahrenheit and think in Celsius (actually, it took me longer to change from calling it centigrade to Celsius).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday July 28 2017, @03:12PM
It's funny, but to some extent it's what you grow up with. I've been in Europe for decades, and obviously "think" in Celsius. And yet...
Even after all this time, if I'm using English, sometimes something will slip out that references temperatures in Fahrenheit, or distances in miles. These tend to be expressions rather than measurements. For example, saying it's "in the 60s" is just a string of syllables meaning "it's cool out", rather than a temperature measurement. Or saying something is "miles away" just means "far" (and no one says "it's kilometers away").
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.