Fun fact time, -40F is -40C.
And 575F is 575K
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Fahrenheit is a strange scale.
It's just designed with a slightly different set of assumptions.
Instead of water freezing and boiling 100° apart, it's 180° in fahrenheit. That makes it so that they're on the opposite sides of a temperature gauge, and a degree of rotation of the gauge matches a degree of temperature.
Instead of zero being the freezing point of water under specific conditions, it's a brine solution whose temperature will stabilize in a way that's useful for using as a calibration point.
Stripped of its context, it's odd. But it's not irrational, just no longer consensus as the standard, and as such deprecated.
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Fahrenheit: how hot humans feel
Celsius: how hot water feels
Kelvin & Rankine: how hot atoms feel
I don’t think how hot humans feel works at all, it’s just arbitrary
Can humans survive 100 degree heat? Yes so it doesn’t represent 100%
150 for 3rd degree burns (almost instant), does Fahrenheit go off base 150? Also no
What about cold? Well -40 requires a lot of layers, so then +40 should be pretty hot for humans right? Nope, because it’s not related to humans at all
100°F was supposed to be average human body temp. Guy who made the scale fucked up his math and we ended up actually at 98.6°F
Nah, that's a myth. It's actually a little more complicated than that, and the actual measurements changed over time.
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If farenheit represents how humans feel then 50 is the most comfortable temperature right?
0 should be the most comfortable, with less being cold and more being hot.
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Based on human perception, based on water chemistry, based on physics.
You'll be shocked to learn that the distance in Kelvin is also adjusted to water "chemistry", albeit changing the aggregate state seems more physics to me, since no molceules are reacting with each other.
Thankfully that has been redefined using the Boltzmann constant, so now anyone in the universe can agree on °C and K without needing to measure any Vienna standard ocean water.
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Zero Fahrenheit is the freezing point of brine (of a certain concentration). That's water chemistry.
Originally, 90F was based on the average human body temperature, but that later changed to 96F, which just goes to show how arbitrary that scale is.
It's all arbitrary. Someone just decided to base a scale off of something and that something isn't fixed from the start. The meter used to be based off the measurement of the earth, but now it's based off of light.
It's just some random semi-useful starting point that we all agree on so we're using the same language.
The meter did not change, science has merely defined it more precisely and reliably over time. It is a measure of length, still one 40 millionth of the circumference of the earth through the poles. Other definitions like the speed of light definition will give you the same result. These newer definitions have reduced uncertainty and added ways to reproduce its length by natural means. But it's not like the 'original' meter was shorter or longer than today's meter, at least not by any noticeable margin.
Shifting the top end of a temperature scale by over five percent of the scale is a bit more arbitrary than that.
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Since when is 0°C "fairly cold" it's literally freezing.
0°C is completely fine with jeans and a thick jacket, especially when it's sunny and there isn't much wind. It's cold, but there's probably not much ice or snow, if anything, probably mostly slush.
Compared to say -20 C where you should have a good ski jacket and ski pants, warm shoes and socks, generally multiple layers everywhere, winter gloves and so on.
It can be -20 C and you can be still fine with jeans and a jacket if it isn't windy.
What I'm saying is temperature alone doesn't tell you the whole story.
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It is also literally melting.
I've been in -37C snow shoveling. Since then 0C doesn't even register as cold to me
Yep, and I've been in 110C in sauna. It's pretty fucking hot but not death
I think more that if it's 100c outside the planet is basically dead.
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The northern half of the US laughs
The temperature that water freezes at is only fairly cold weather by a lot of people's perception.
I'd call it "chilly". No jacket for running to the mailbox, or if I'll be outside for half an hour or so. Light jacket otherwise. I don't expect it to snow, since it's not actually cold enough usually, and there won't be ice on the ground unless it's just warmed up.
So it might be "freezing", but that doesn't make it cold.
It's almost like being 'fairly cold for humans' is a wide range, and subjective, therefore useless as a baseline.
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I'd like to propose a discussion between a person from Arizona and a person from Alaska to define what is "Really hot outside"
Im from Texas, and 100F is "stay inside in the AC" weather. I bet an Arizonan would say the same.
Being from a particularly hot or cold location doesn't make you immune to heat or cold, it makes you a connoisseur of heat and cold. You get better at recognizing gradations of extreme temperature (knowing which are uncomfortable and which can literally kill you if you're not careful), you learn how to plan ahead and dress for the weather, and you develop emotional coping systems for extremes.
But if it's either 100°F or 0°F, no matter where you're from, that's a temperature to be wary of.
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Or cold
Celcius is the logical choice. The others are just crazy.
Kelvin and Celsius are the same, just offset onto absolute zero or the water freezing point
Yeah, often it is just way more convenient to use the Kelvin scale without any negative temperatures for some calculations and formulas then Celsius
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We should really normalise the Japanese system - it makes as much sense as the European system and has the benefit of being "alphabetically" sortable.
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0°C getting cold outside
100°C getting hot in sauna
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