this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 year ago (88 children)

I'm not sure I agree with the take for farenheit. It's an arbitraty choice, and to me who grew up in a country that uses celsius, I find that far easier to understand and farenheit may as well be random numbers to me.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Fahrenheit is roughly a 0-100 scale of "places humans can conceivably live". 0-100 scales are more intuitive than a scale from like -15 to 40, which is approximately what celsius uses for the temperatures humans can live at.

[–] Pok 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If only there was something more specific that a wider range of people could relate to.

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

Something more specific than how humans relate to the temperature? Why would that be useful? If you're doing science, you should use Celsius. If you're a regular human being, being affected by temperature, you should use fahrenheit.

[–] Pok 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would be useful because it gives multiple specific and relatable reference points. How is that not useful?

The way humans relate to the temperature has a huge range and so very vague. Do you say that 0 is when you swap shorts for trousers? Or when you put a hoody on? Or is it when your neighbour puts their hoody on? Or when your friend from Texas puts their hoody on?

It's like when you come across a recipe that calls for a knob of butter. Everyone's knob is a different size, we've just agreed to say that whatever it is, it's enough.

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

It doesn't matter what other people think about the temperature, it only matters what you think. Fahrenheit is useful in the same sense the word Red is useful: you and I could be seeing totally different colors that we call red, but it doesn't matter because we both point to the same objects as being red.

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