this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Fahrenheit vs. Celsius vs. Kelvin (i.imgur.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's almost like being 'fairly cold for humans' is a wide range, and subjective, therefore useless as a baseline.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but that's also not super relevant to the merits of a temperature scale. Fahrenheit isn't actually based off of human subjective temperature perception, it just coincidentally lines up a bit closer with the comfortable range for people in northern temperate climates.

Before it's redefinition in terms of Celsius, fahrenheit was defined by a particular temperature stable brine solution (easy to replicate for calibration), and with the freezing and boiling points of water set to be 180 degrees apart, because of the relationship with a circle.

People decided we liked base10 adherence more than trigonometry, and then everyone adopted Celsius, so we should use Celsius. Doesn't make fahrenheit some sort of random scale, just deprecated.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The most common defence of Fahrenheit are Americans saying it is the most suited for humans because 0 is "very cold" and 100 "very hot". That is why people are referencing it with regards to the merits of a temperature scale in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh, I know. I was just agreeing that it would be a crap way to design a system, but that doesn't also mean that it's not reasonable for a lot of people to feel like it fits better.

It's design is as specific as Celsius and it's only coincidentally lines up with northern temperate.
Preferring 10 degree temperature intervals to 5 degree intervals is a silly reason to give up compatibility, but people have their preferences.

It's not like we don't teach metric in schools, or label everything in metric.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well I'd say that's why op chose the adverb "fairly", it gets across that it's a wide range and lacks specificity.

Not completely useless as a baseline, but fairly general.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Obviously the freezing point of water is also a range (depending on purity, altitude, etc) but would you say it's less, or more specific?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Compared with the human experience of "cold"? More specific, even when talking about ocean water and water on mountains or whatever altitude water you're talking about.