Submitted 3 weeks ago by Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
That’s because human perception exisys on a logarithmic scale! It’s called the Weber-Fechner law, and it was one of the first studied psychological phenomena, before psychology as a field was even defined.
Interestingly, our sense of the “bigness” of numbets is also logarithmic. This is why there have to be explicit explanations of the massive difference between a million and a billion - our brains instinctively and erroneously think “eh, it’s like double.”
“What’s the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars? About a billion dollars.”
It’s .1% of a billion, that is a rounding error
My favourite way to comprehend it it by time:
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years
As a Swede I can attest to that the biggest difference is when approaching 0°C or around 0°. It’s due to the air humidity. There’s still a bit humidity in the air around 0° but when that’s gone you don’t feel too big of a difference after that.
From what I remember from physics course, transitioning between solid/liquid/gas states requires extra energy to be absorbed or released that isn’t contributing to change in temperature. So change from -1°C ice to +1°C water is actually taking more energy than from 10°C to 12°C, despite being the same difference in temperature.
Also, we perceive temperature not in terms of these absolute values anyway, but rather how quickly it transfers heat to or from our body. That’s why humidity affects it, as moist air absorbs heat faster than dry (air being a pretty good heat insulator in general).
Once it’s below -5 it’s just cold. The range 10° above that has the possibility of being a damp cold and that sucks the life out of you
Yeah, -15 to -5°C is nice. But the range of -5 to +5°C… that isn’t fun…
Yeah exactly
I can always tell when it’s about 0 because I can feel a great tingle when I breathe in through my nose.
Hard to describe, but I’m sure you know what I mean.
I highly disagree. 5 and touching a metal doorhandle ungloved is painful. 15 degrees is relatively safe if your not doing something stupid but 5 you have to be bundled up well. My bet is it feels the same to you because you bundle up well when going out into 5. Also the wind chill gets much worse the lower you go. I think also there is a big effect as you approach freezing. I tend to hate 35 degree weather vs 25 because of rain vs snow. 35 degree rain is some of the worst weather to me because you can’t simply bundle up for it.
I don’t know what 15 degrees Fahrenheit feels like. Or 5. Or 35. Or 45.
15 f is pretty chilly. 35 f is cold if it was warm yesterday, but warm if it was cold yesterday, 45 is the same. 5 f is really cold if it’s humid or windy, but tolerable otherwise.
-15f is where your teeth start to hurt if you open your mouth outside.
If we convert to civilized units, -15f is -26c. Ah, so not that cold at all lol
That’s because you’re using the silly farenheit scale, which was designed for brine. You should use celcius, which is designed for humans.
Celsius was designed for water, we should have a scale where 100 = maximum temperature human is expected to be alive and 0 = minimum temperature human is expected to be alive (and 50 normal human temperature). That’s a humane scale.
Humans are mostly water though.
And your scale makes even less sense because you are ignoring time and air moisture (for the maximum temperature). You would probably die very quickly in a 120°C hot sauna if it had 100% moisture.
Same with the cold: I’d not survive much longer than a minute in -50°C without clothes but with adequate protection several hours seems possible.
Humans in different areas are used to and can survive different temperatures. There’s this buddhist guy who goes out in the snow naked and meditates to produce body heat.
But all humans are made of water, and can relate its chemical processes to their comfort and survival.
In normal grades, 10 degrees in the autumn means winter is almost upon us, but 10 degrees at spring is t-shirt weather. And 20 degrees through the night means it’s impossible to sleep because you’re drowning in sweat. Probably very Norwegian issues, though.
Man I wish it eas 20°C at night where I am
I never wish for that, but seeing a positive number wouldn’t hurt these days.
What the fuck is Fahrenheit.
It’s a weird pseudo-scientific scale based on feelings, a bit like horoscopes. I don’t know why they still use it.
if its 45C thats hot.
Parts of the US can reach 100 during the summer
That sounded weird so I had to look this up. The hottest recorded temperature America is 134.4°F (56.7°C), which was measured in Death Valley, California, on July 10, 1913.
I think you could be mixing up °C and °F.
But after experiencing 15 or 5 for a few weeks 35 feels almost like spring. A few weeks ago I was half frozen at 35 with 2 jackets on, yesterday it was in the mid-30s and I took off my one jacket and was just in short sleeves because I was starting to get sweaty.
Your body adjusts to temperature changes.
When you experience the first cold day, your body panics and acts like you’re going to freeze to death. After a few days pass and you don’t freeze to death, your body realizes it overreacted and adjusts accordingly.
It’s just a Nervous Nellie.
Yup. All winter, we have been whinging about single and teen digits and wanting summer to come around. Then we get blasted with 44C. We weren’t careful what we wished for… But on the positive side, the rest of the summer will be a breeze. 😎
Absolutely true.
5 and 15 don’t feel the same to me
It starts to make sense when we account for our body’s reactions.
The human body will work much harder at some of these temperatures, than at others.
It’s also why wind chill matters. The amount of heat lost by the body is much more relevant to safety than the ambient temperature.
As a Mainer anything under like 5° C feels the same to me. The only difference is how much your snot freezes.
I feel it the other way ’round. I’ll wear the same jacket beyween 35 to 45°F, and add some layers for 15°F. But for 5°F, I’ll switch to the parka.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
-9.4°C, -15°C, and 1.7°C and 7.2°C, for those not using imperial units.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Thank you friend. Something something multiply/divide by 1.8 add/subtract 32. Haven’t thought about that equation in years.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I just use this site (a bit of an unfortunate name, but it does its job)