this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
898 points (94.6% liked)

Science Memes

11189 readers
1544 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
898
AAAAtoms (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
93 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [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 (3 children)

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

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

load more comments (1 replies)