water is a molecule
H2O is the chemical formula for water, which means that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms
you’re probably confusing atom with molecule…
Wait, but this doesn’t mean it’s A molecule, it has at least like three of them.
Also, water isn’t normally just H2O, but it contains more stuff. We still call that water.
Honestly? I’ve only lived in countries with Celsius and Celsius is how I feel. I know exactly how hot or cold a day is gonna be if I look up the temperature. Thats how I know what clothes to wear!!! But Fahrenheit confuses the shit out of me. Every time I visit the US, I always convert the temp back to Celsius when someone tells me the temp.
I know Fahrenheit has more degrees and that can give you more datapoints. But cmon. The temp only goes up to, like, 50 C anyways lol. How many degrees do you need 🤣. Can you really differentiate between 61 and 62 F? Now, 60 to 65 F might be believable, but that’s like 15 to 18 C so, that much difference is shown even in Celsius.
I’m not saying Celsius is better, or that Americans should convert to it. Actually, if I was God-Emperor, I’d force us all to use Kelvin, given it begins with Absolute Zero and I’m a sucker for shit like that.
But variety is the spice of life. For Americans, Fahrenheit is how they feel. For most of the rest of us, it’s Celsius.
It’s more about the number range in ordinary use than the granularity.
Ordinary daily temperatures in F run from about 0-100. Numbers outside of this range are extreme weather.
Are people even capable of accurately perceiving a difference of 1 or 2 degrees in either system? I’m putting on a jacket if it’s 9 or 7 celcius outside anyway. Struggling to think of any human day to day situations where a difference of a degree or two changes the way most people act or feel.
If you need granularity, you can still get infinite granularity with decimals in either system.
the temperature also isn’t the only thing that matters, it also matters what the weather is like, how much moisture is in the air, and how windy it is.
With no wind you can have like -5°C and it’s perfectly fine if you just wear some fluffy clothing, but if the wind starts picking up it can be +5°C and you’ll feel like you’re going to die.
Boiling water feels really fucking hot which is why Celsius makes more sense
Numbers outside of this range are extreme weather.
Hot Weather: This argument might have been valid like a century ago but it clearly hasn’t been valid for billions of people around the world (including parts of the US) that regularly sees temperature crossing 38 C (100 F) in the summer. This includes Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and I’m sure more places too.
Like, it’s not extreme if it’s expected every year. And I’m not taking 39 C. Where I lived, it reached 49 C (120 F) every single summer. That is summer.
Cold Weather: And this is also true for so many people around the world who live in places where temperature, every winter, goes below -18 C (0 F). Like, that’s not a billion people, but that’s still in the millions (Canada, Russia, Scandinavia etc.) We’d have to use the - sign every winter no matter which system we use, Celsius or Fahrenheit. Just like the billion+ people I talked about above.
People used to the Celsius system, especially those living in areas where it frequently goes below freezing, are well versed with the - symbol. We know the difference between -5 and -10 like we know between 0 and 5.
Again, Americans can keep their F and their LBs and their Miles and their every other unique charm. But it’s also funny when they try to prove that it’s somehow better or more natural. Like, it’s natural and rational to you.
People used to the Celsius system, especially those living in areas where it frequently goes below freezing, are well versed with the - symbol. We know the difference between -5 and -10 like we know between 0 and 5.
Looking at some of the literacy stats coming out of American education, I’m not surprised that some Americans think that the concept of a negative number is an undue inconvenience.
This came up a week ago. I made a chart:
| Temps | easily relatable conditions |
|---|---|
| <0 | throw boiling water up in the air to make it snow |
| 0-10 | dangerous freezing cold |
| 10-20 | bitter freezing cold |
| 20-30 | freezing cold |
| 30-40 | coat cold |
| 50-60 | jacket cool |
| 60-70 | cool |
| 70-80 | pleasant |
| 80-90 | warm |
| 90-100 | hot |
| 100-110 | too damn hot for my fat ass/fry an egg outside |
One of the conclusions on why I like Fahrenheit over Celsius for weather is it’s ironically the most base 10 like for a non-SI scale. A phrase like “it’s going to be in the 70s today” has so much information in it. Usually with no weather changes like a front coming in, you’ll know that during the day it’ll be pleasant. At night the temperature range will drop by around 10 degrees and you’ll know you’ll likely need a light jacket or at least long sleeves to stay comfortable.
If metric wanted to adopt a scale with more graduations that could be easily grouped to 10s, that’d be great. I don’t know why 0-100 was arbitrarily chosen to be the scale for water instead of 0-1000.
For temp measurements outside of weather I really do prefer Celsius though.
Nah, it doesn’t make any sense, and isn’t deep or insightful at all.
You mean other than the fact only a tiny proportion of people in the world use Fahrenheit?
It didn’t say which people. Also, I’m from South East Asia and have used Fahrenheit my entire life as a means to measure body temperature using mercury thermometers during fever time. It’s so much easier to say whether a fever is above 100 or not and then how much above 100.
So people do feel in Fahrenheit. A fuck ton of them do.
Yes, I know the meme is about the weather but… take a chill pill and look at your prejudices.
“Fahrenheit is how people feel” only makes sense if said people have never used another scale. You know how 100F “feels” because that’s what you use. If you used Celsius you’d know how that scale feels instead, and be used to using the more useful scale generally.
See also: people who think they don’t have an accent.
Notice how the tweet doesn’t say “all people”. Context is everywhere and everything.
100 f is pretty close to average body temperature.
So above 100 means your surroundings are hotter than your body is unless you have a fever.
I think that’s an okay land mark.
You know what? I just enjoy being able to set a thermostat to a comfortable level by just using whole numbers instead of resorting do decimal places.
Celcius is how I “feel”, because that’s the scale I’ve learned and can relate to.
Farenheit is what you “feel” for the same reason.
It’s not because one is intrinsically better linked to our bodies.
You’re missing the point. The scale is what matters, not your personal experience or unit preference. From 0-100 F is right about what a human could be expected to tolerate without much help. In C, that’s -18-38. That’s a much more limited range in terms of human tolerance, but it works great for water, which would be 0-100 C. The scale doesn’t translate as well to K, but it does end at 0, so there’s that.
It only works if you grew up in a country that uses Fahrenheit. I didn’t, so to me Celsius is how I feel. I’ve no idea whether 20 f is jeans and a t-shirt weather, or if I should be getting my coat. 20 c however I know that as long as it’s not windy I’ll be good with jeans and a t-shirt, but that it’s still a little too cool to get out my shorts.
Let me explain. Anything below 0F is really cold for a human, and anything above 100F is really hot. The Fahrenheit scale was built around human biology.
0C isn’t even that cold, and 100C is literally instant death. Thus, Celsius is less applicable to the human experience and more applicable to the physical properties of water. The typical range of human scale temperatures is like -10 to 40 degrees on the Celsius scale? Makes no sense.
Kelvin is the most scientifically objective scale, but also the least intuitive for humans, because absolute zero is completely outside our frame of reference.
So it’s easily demonstrable that Fahrenheit is how people feel, Celsius is how water feels, and Kelvin is how molecules feel.
Be forewarned that I am willing to die on this hill, and any challenges to my position will result in increasingly large walls of text until you have conceded the point 😤
main arguments from below
Celsius is adequate because it’s based on water, and all life on earth is also based on water, so it’s not totally out of our wheelhouse. But for humans specifically I think Fahrenheit is the clear answer.
One point that many may overlook is that most of us here are relatively smart and educated. There are a good number of people on this planet who just aren’t very good with numbers. Obviously a genius could easily adapt their mind to Kelvin or whatever.
You have to use negative numbers more frequently with Celsius > Celsius has a less intuitive frame of reference
Each Celsius degree is nearly two Fahrenheit degrees > Celsius is less granular
The reason I argue the more granular Fahrenheit is more intuitive is because a one degree change should intuitively be quite minor. But since you only have like 40 or 50 degrees to describe the entire gamut of human experiences with Celsius, it blends together a bit too much. I know that people will say to use decimals, but its the same flaw as negative numbers. It’s simply unintuitive and cumbersome.
B) 66F is room temperature. Halfway between freezing (32F) and 100F.
the intuition is learned and not natural.
All scales have to be learned, obviously. It’s far easier to create intuitive anchorpoints in a 0-100 system than a -18 to 38 system. Thus, Fahrenheit is more intuitive for the average person.
I should note that if you are a scientist, the argument completely changes. If you are doing experiments and making calcualtions across a much wider range of temperatures, Celsius and Kelvin are much more intuitive. But we are talking about the average human experience, and for that situation, I maintain Fahrenheit supremacy
Final edit: Well, I got what I asked for. I think I ended up making some pretty irrefutable points with these two last ones though. Once again, math saves the day. If somebody wants to continue the discussion make another thread and tag me because this is a bit much for science memes.
further arguments
It’s not about the specific numbers, but the range that they cover. It’s about the relation of the scale to our lived experience. Hypothetically, if you wanted to design a temperature scale around our species, you would assign the range of 0-100 to the range that would be the most frequently utilized, because those are the shortest numbers. It’s not an absolute range, but the middle of a bell curve which covers 95% of practical scenarios that people encounter. It doesn’t make any sense to start that range at some arbitrary value like 1000 or -18.
When the temperature starts to go above the human body temperature, most humans cannot survive in those environments. Thus, they would have little reason to describe such a temperature. Celsius wastes many double digit numbers between 40-100 that are rarely used. Instead, it forces you to use more negative numbers.
This winter, many days were in the 10s and 20s where I live. Using Celsius would have been marginally more inconvenient in those scenarios, which happen every winter. This is yet another benefit of Fahrenheit, it has a set of base 10 divisions that can be easily communicated, allowing for a convenient level of uncertainty when describing a temperature.
the end is nigh
Generally -40 to 40 are the extremes of livable areas.
Sure, water is a really good system and it works well.
And for F that range is -40 to 104. See how you get 64 extra degrees of precision and nearly all of them are double digit numbers? No downside.
Furthermore F can use its base 10 system to describe useful ranges of temperature such as the 20s, 60s, etc. So you have 144 degrees instead of just 80, and you also have the option to utilize a more broad 16 degree scale that’s also built in.
You might say that Celsius technically also has an 8 degree scale(10s, 30s), but I would argue that the range of 10 degrees Celsius is too broad to be useful in the same way. In order to scale such that 0C is water freezing and 100C boiling, it was necessary for the units to become larger and thus the 10C shorthand is much less descriptive than the 10F shorthand, at least for most human purposes.
My argument is actually pretty simple, but people could always challenge these assertions, in which case it would get more complicated.
A) Fahrenheit has an appropriate level of granularity for humans
B) Fahrenheit has an intuitive frame of reference for humans
Celsius and Kelvin do not. Celsius is adequate because it’s based on water, and all life on earth is also based on water, so it’s not totally out of our wheelhouse. But for humans specifically I think Fahrenheit is the clear answer.
One point that many may overlook is that most of us here are relatively smart and educated. There are a good number of people on this planet who just aren’t very good with numbers. Obviously a genius could easily adapt their mind to Kelvin or whatever.
But Fahrenheit is the temperature scale of the proletariat, the working man, the average Joe. And I’m here for it.
The Fahrenheit scale was built around human biology.
Nope, it was built around the highest and lowest extremes some dude could create in his room. Not based on human biology in the slightest. Don’t repeat this false information.
0C isn’t even that cold, and 100C is literally instant death.
Yeah, but counter argument, who gives a shit? The “meme” doesn’t say anything remotely close to “from 0 to 100”. I don’t know why you are under the impression that these scales become inaccurate if you leave the 0-100 range. I live in a region that frequents -40C to +40C over a year- that’s centered on zero, so it’s already better for “how humans feel” than being centered on 32 and pretending there is some cosmic/celestial/god ordained reason for it.
Kelvin is the most scientifically objective scale, but also the least intuitive for humans…
Still no one giving a shit- the “meme” doesn’t remotely even suggest anything related to this.
Be forewarned that I am willing to die on this hill
I don’t know why you sign this off with “I’m an obnoxious twat”, but I’m perfectly happy with using the block function if the threat is real.
A) Fahrenheit has an appropriate level of granularity for humans
B) Fahrenheit has an intuitive frame of reference for humans
Celsius and Kelvin do not.
I don’t want to fight about this I just think it’s actually true, and I also think Europeans get insanely defensive about stuff like this for no reason.
100C is literally instant death.
Laughs in Finnish (while sipping beer in a 100C Sauna)
I like watching people dying in this hill, more power to you. I don’t necessarily agree, but telling people it’s negative anything just to say it’s pretty cold is indeed less intuitive to me (and kids don’t even know negatives until a bit older).
Only thing is, 100 doesn’t need to be anyone’s scale, with C I think of it more like a scale from 10 to 40, especially since I live in California, and F is more a scale from 50 to 110. It’d probably help if F really was based on human temps, with 100 being the average temp whenever you measure, instead of 96 to 98.
(An aside, neither are ratio scales. 0 in both cases are arbitrary and a temp of 100 isn’t twice as hot as 50. Only Kelvin is like that, which makes it my favorite even if it’s never intuitive, haha)
An aside, neither are ratio scales. 0 in both cases are arbitrary and a temp of 100 isn’t twice as hot as 50. Only Kelvin is like that, which makes it my favorite even if it’s never intuitive, haha
Huh, TIL. That’s actually pretty cool. Kelvin moving up the rankings 😅
Only Kelvin is like that
False. Rankine is too.
I didn’t find any others in a quick glance at the wiki, but it would be easy to imagine a scale like 0 at absolute zero, and 100 at the freezing point of water or something.
When I was a kid, I learned about negative numbers pretty early on. It was a perfectly normal part of life, since the temp was in the negative a lot of the year. Made sense to me. Temp is below zero? Water is solid. . Temp above zero? Water is liquid. Fahrenheit doesn’t make much sense to me, inherently, because I don’t have an integral frame of reference, built over decades of familiarity. Celcius on the other hand, it just makes sense!
Did it never occur to you that Celsius is basically Kelvin with the zero point moved to human reference?
Human reference because >50% of our body is water. We are essentially water bags.
Anything below 0F is really cold for a human
Anything below 10F is really cold for a human too, and so is anything below -10F what’s your point?
100C is literally instant death.
While commonly between 80 and 100, finnish sauna temperatures up to 110°c are not unheard of.
Very hot, but definitely not even close to instant death.
While commonly between 80 and 100, finnish sauna temperatures up to 110°c are not unheard of.
Very hot, but definitely not even close to instant death.
Really? My whole thesis paper about how humans immediately explode into a million pieces when they reach 100 degrees Celsius is completely ruined. How will I ever recover?
Anything below 10F is really cold for a human too, and so is anything below -10F what’s your point?
My point is self evident, you’re willfully ignoring it.
The typical range of human scale temperatures is like -10 to 40 degrees on the Celsius scale? Makes no sense.
But it makes so much sense though. Because it’s anchored around the freezing and boiling points of water, which is a universal experience we can all relate to. 0°C outside? It’s freezing.
Fahrenheit as “the human scale” is what makes no fucking sense. You end up with the same exact problem where your specific range of “human scale temperatures” does not line up with 0-100°F at all. But it’s also not anchored to water’s behavior. So it just ends up being arbitrary.
But it makes so much sense though. Because it’s anchored around the freezing and boiling points of water, which is a universal experience we can all relate to. 0°C outside? It’s freezing.
It does make sense. But no, I cannot personally relate to being H2O and freezing into a block of ice or evaporating into the air.
As a human, I can relate to when I feel cold, and when I feel hot. And a scale where I feel hot at 30 degrees and cold at -10 is not even remotely intuitive.
You end up with the same exact problem where your specific range of “human scale temperatures” does not line up with 0-100°F at all.
Human scale temperatures do line up with 0-100 on the Fahrenheit scale. Certainly much better than 0-100 on the Celsius scale. How are you even disputing that???
Whenever I think that I have seen it all in one of these °F vs °C threads, someone comes along and proves me wrong.
No, the F scale was not built around human biology, that is pure conjecture from people who can’t let go of their antiquated system of measures.
But you go die on that hill, I won’t stop you.
Thoughts?
spoiler
Generally -40 to 40 are the extremes of livable areas.
Sure, water is a really good system and it works well.
And for F that range is -40 to 104. See how you get 64 extra degrees of precision and nearly all of them are double digit numbers? No downside.
Furthermore F can use its base 10 system to describe useful ranges of temperature such as the 20s, 60s, etc. So you have 144 degrees instead of just 80, and you also have the option to utilize a more broad 16 degree scale that’s also built in.
You might say that Celsius technically also has an 8 degree scale(10s, 30s), but I would argue that the range of 10 degrees Celsius is too broad to be useful in the same way. In order to scale such that 0C is water freezing and 100C boiling, it was necessary for the units to become larger and thus the 10C shorthand is much less descriptive than the 10F shorthand, at least for most human purposes.
-10C or 10C: Pretty comfortable
-20C or 20C: Starting to feel bit cold or hot
-30C or 30C: Uncomfortably cold or hot
-40C or 40C: Almost painfully cold or hot
How exactly is -40F to 104F better than that for human purposes?
Looks like you made the mistake of posting this when the European downvote gang was awake.
I just got absolutely obliterated. Believe it or not, I got up to +10 on that initial comment at one point. I think if I had formally presented my argument initially, it may have gone better.
I just didn’t realize that mentioning Celsius was going to set off this kind of reaction. It’s so weird the things that different cultures hold sacred.
Nah. Only 50F to 115f is usable. What kind of weird ass datapoints are those? I mean 10C to 45C are just as random, but at least it aligns with something practical. At least I understand that 200C is twice what it takes to boil water. I have no idea how hot 400F is supposed to be.
What is rankine?
