this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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temperature (mander.xyz)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Most people are inherently biased towards their chosen system. A "water scale" doesn't make sense to fahrenheit users, and a "human scale" is dismissed as even existing by the Celsius users. But hey, if you want to fight, have at it. It's annoying and pointless, but that's what the internet is for.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (3 children)

“human scale” is dismissed as even existing by the Celsius users

Celsius user here.
I find "I'm more used to it, therefore it makes more intuitive sense to me" is a perfectly understandable argument.

The problem with the human scale argument is that it makes it sound completely arbitrary.
To a human there is no objective difference between -1F, 0F or +1F. They are all about the same degree of "cold".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Is there a difference between 19, 20, and 21 Celsius? It's also pretty subtle. Yes, there's a bigger difference than fahrenheit, but I've never cared regardless of scale down to what degree the temperature is. As a fahrenheit user, it's always 10s. 0-10, 10-20, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Is there a difference between 19, 20, and 21 Celsius?

First off, nobody claimed that Celsius is based on human perception so humans not being able to differentiate between these is simply irrelevant to the argument.
Second, the bounds of 0 and 100 are based on the freezing temp of water which are specific, non-arbitrary temperatures.

I'm not arguing one system over the other, I just think the "human scale" argument has been made up just to have an argument.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Is there a difference between 19, 20, and 21 Celsius?

Yes, as anyone that’s ever worked in an office can tell you.

Edit: Apparently I was expecting too much cognitive ability / common knowledge so let me be clearer: Generally women prefer it warmer (>20), men like it cooler (<20). It’s a very common office discussion.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago

So either way the “human scale” idea is fucking dumb

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

i mean a lot of measurements are arbitrary necause their manmade. thats creation of measurements in a nutshell. they exist to give people context to conpare to. time is a manmade construct, unit of length is a manmade construct. unit of weight is a manmade construct.

for instance with 1 kilo, tell me the last time a regular person had platinum-iridium ingot. its completely arbitrary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

tell me the last time a regular person had platinum-iridium ingot

What, you don't?

But yeah, I agree, units are made up. I mean, why is the boiling point at 100C and not any other number? Someone made it up.
I'm just saying the argument "0F is really cold" is just as true as -10F is really cold or +10F is really cold.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Also when they describe their fahrenheit human scale it is "0 is really cold" and "100 is really hot", which are subjective and not very informative gauges of anything.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Did it never occur to you that Celsius is basically Kelvin with the zero point moved to human reference?

Human reference because >50% of our body is water. We are essentially water bags.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is interesting but not really justified historically. Celsius predates the concept of absolute zero, and water is very important to our world, not just ourselves.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I was replying to a (now gone) post on how Kelvin is for science, Fahrenheit for humans ,and Celsius is useless. It should give a perspective how to get from Kelvin to Celsius, not give a wildly off-topic history lesson.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'm honestly just so tired. Could I snap my fingers and have the US switch to metric units with everyone understanding them as intuitively as the units they grew up with, I would. I really don't have an emotional attachment to what letter appears next to the temperature.

We couldn't even stick the the unanimously popular bill to abolish DST. This issue is so much further down the list of priorities and yet so much more expensive to change that I don't expect it to come up during my lifetime. To spend the next few decades arguing about it without any hope of a meaningful resolution sounds like my personal hell.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

how do you calibrate a fahrenheit thermometer? With celsius it's hilariously trivial, if the thermometer says it's about 0 when you see water freeze, it's correct enough for everyday use.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

I mean you can do the same with a Fahrenheit thermometer, just check that it reaches 32. Most anyone used to that scale knows 32 is the magic number.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

You put a normal Celsius thermometer next to it and apply maths.