Comment on xkcd #3001: Temperature Scales

• Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Yeah, well that’s a cultural thing really. Celcius and fahrenheit scales are both quite arbitrary. The kelvin scale uses absolute zero, which totally makes sense, but the other fixed point is pretty arbitrary when you think of it. The fahrenheit scale makes sense for the human experience of weather, while the celcius scale makes sense for generally life on Earth where water plays an important role. Neither of them are particularly universal.

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  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The fahrenheit scale makes sense for the human experience of weather

    Wat. Yanks keep saying this but… wat

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  • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Technically they arr arbitrary yes, but sometimes some arbitrary makes more sense than others. Why is fahrenheit 0 at -32°C? Accordinfmg to wikipedia he chose 0°F as the melting point of water and ammonium chloride (what percentage of solution?) and the highest was initially “the average of the hottest temperature of a healthy man”. Do you see why this feels more arbitrady then " the melting and boiling point of water at 101.300 Pa"? Not only these points are constant and measurable, but water is such ubiqutous in human life that it feels at least less arbitrary as a reference point.

    Historically, it was ok. Now it just doesn’t make much sense, sincd we tried (and mostly succeded) to standardize measurements units for centuries (and make them all base 10)

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    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I don’t really use the Fahrenheit scale for anything, but when I bump into it, I prefer to think of those values as: 0°F is a cold winter and 100°F is a hot summer weather. Makes sense for the human experience, which makes it a very practical unit. The original definition was more technical than that, but it was also severely limited by the technology at the time, so it had some flaws.

      You also have to look at these units in the proper historical context. Measurements were a complete mess, so having at least something that sort of makes some sense and is somewhat repeatable, is a clear improvement. Both, Fahrenheit and Celcius scales totally addressed those concerns, and that makes them both good enough. Absolute zero and plank temperature weren’t even known back then, so what can you expect.

      When it comes to using these units in serious scientific and engineering applications, you run into problems, but the kelvin scale addresses those pretty well. It’s not exactly elegant, but at least it’s functional. Because of historical baggage, we’re pretty much stuck with these units, but it could be worse.

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      • pressanykeynow@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        0°F is a cold winter and 100°F is a hot summer

        Makes sense for some specific location. But in general sense 0°F is not cold and 100°F is not hot.

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      • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I agree, historically they make sense, but times have evolved and I honestlt believe certain things should belong to the past, just like we abandoned 12 base monetary and measurement systems, except for a single place on earth that just ignores what everyone else does and goes their own way.

        In a global world, we should unite things instead of dividing for ideological/political reasons. Still, my own is an ideological reason why the imperial system should disappear, but there are pratical issues it causes, espeically when used internationally in industrial and scientific fields, which is very common.

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      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        0 is an extremely cold winter. Like you’re going to die very quickly if you’re outside without extreme weather gear.

        Where I’m at, mid east coast, we only have a few days each winter get below 20, which is already hellishly cold.

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  • Vilian@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Human experience in weather is arbitrary and that’s just cope, celcius fells as much natural as fahrenheit, the only difference is what you learned as kid

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  • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Culturally speaking, it’s pretty cursed to use some units that are specific to a country instead of the global standard for science. Extra cursed if it’s for serious engineering (just ask NASA).

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• SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The other scores seem to be more about inherent cursedness, not simply ‘there is a far better option’.

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