Comment by vidarh
1 year ago
The day after I left Oslo after Christmas, it hit -20F. 0F is peanuts. I've also experienced above 100F several times. In the US, incidentally. It may be a perceptual system, but it's not very perceptive, and very culturally and geographically limited.
(incidentally I also have far more use for freezing point and boiling point of water, but I don't think it makes a big difference for celsius that those happen to be 0 and 100 either)
I grew up in a place where it'd get above 100F and below 0F pretty much every year.
But I will say, F is pretty decent still, even if the GP statement is a bit off:
100F is getting uncomfortably hot for a human. You gotta worry about heat stroke and stuff.
0F is getting uncomfortably cold for a human. You gotta worry about frostbite and dying from the cold if underdressed.
In the middle, you'll probably live. Get locked out of the house taking out the trash when it's 15F? You're probably okay until you find a neighbor. Get locked out of the house taking out the trash when it's -15F? You have a moment of mental sheer panic where you realize you might be getting frostbite and require medical attention if you don't get inside in like <10 minutes.
But yea I still use C for almost everything.
80F is uncomfortably hot for me unless I strip off; that's when my aircon goes on. And 55F is uncomfortably cold...
I think basically all of these are rationalisation (and that goes for the celsius numbers too). They don't matter. You learn very early which numbers you actually care about, and they're pretty much never going to be 0 or 100 on either scale.
You're not going to be thinking about whether it's 0 outside or not if locked out; just whether or not you're freezing cold or not.
It's not the bookends themselves that's the issue, it's the coarseness. Celsius is too coarse because it's extrapolated from 0-freezing and 100-boiling points. People can generally feel the difference between 1˚F increments, and roughly two make up 1˚C diff. Also, you can't really say "in the 70s" etc with Celsius. I watch a foreign weather report and that entire country is in the 20s ˚C for an entire week.
It's a minor difference either way, but I'm not going to switch to something slightly worse.
6 replies →
this is why I use kelvin for everything.
Rankine enters the chat …
For those unaware, degrees Rankine are the same size as degrees Fahrenheit, but counting from absolute zero. It’s the English analogue to the French system’s Kelvin.
Rankine and Fahrenheit, all you need for science and everyday.
ehhh, it's just a scaling factor and no bias/offset, so I'm fine with that. Let's see.
273K = 0°C = 32°F = 491°R
298K = 25°C = 77°F = 536°R
373K = 100°C = 212°F = 671°R
No. That's just crazy.