Strange, because it is bullshit.
Fahrenheit isn’t how people feel, otherwise 50° would be perfect temperature.
You Americans are just used to thinking in Fahrenheit, that is why you think it is how humans feel. As a European, I “feel” in Celsius.
Rating inflation. If someone called you a 5 or 6 out of 10, you’d feel bad. 7/10 is the bottom of acceptability, just like 72° is room temperature.
As is typically responded to this ‘response’: there are a large number of people-many European-who would unironically say that 50°F (10°C) is, in fact, the ideal temperature.
They’re wrong, of course, but they exist.
But you’re also assuming that the exact middle of the range is where the ideal sweet spot should be. That’s wrong. People generally can better handle larger temperature deviations that are colder than their ideal than hotter deviations.
The difference is that humans emit their own heat. Combined with our funny tendency to wear insulative clothing that can asymptotically approach zero net heat exchange with the atmosphere, acceptable temperatures skew wildly towards and beyond freezing.
Meanwhile, without some kind of acting cooling mechanism, any temp even slightly above fever temp is inevitably fatal. You can only take off so many layers. What are you going to do, take off your skin? Sweating helps us humans a lot, but evaporative cooling can only do so much to reverse the heat gradient.
50 F is excellent… with a light jacket or a blanket. Not so much if you’re naked.
Fahrenheit isn’t how people feel, otherwise 50° would be perfect temperature.
it is though? It’s like perfectly comfortable because you can dress up just enough to where you’re actually wearing a decent bit of clothing, but you can also dress down to a pretty light set of clothing as well.
This is also ignoring that this is both, arbitrary, and also completely subjective to the person.
The human body might end up liking 70f more than 50f, purely because it’s 96f inside the body, so something lower to allow heat transfer, but not low enough to be physically uncomfortable would be more expected.
Actually, here’s a good question, why do you land on the 50f point? Are you expecting the middle to be the most optimal point of perfection? Or is this just a metric brain thing?
Fahrenheit literally meant to base the scale with 100 being human body temp.
It was later rescaled by Cavendish to put the freezing point of water at exactly 32 and boiling point at exactly 212, giving a nicely-divisible 180-degree separation between freezing and boiling. That shift is why body temperature is 98.6.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t actually Fahrenheit’s intention, more a happy accident. Also if your body temp is 100°F then you’re running a mild/moderate fever.
I like this version better than “he had a fever when he measured 100 degrees” so I will choose to believe it without further research.
I hope you are correct.
Why would you pick 50 for the perfect temp? Genuinely curious why land on that number.
Because it is in the middle of that “0 is really really cold, 100 is really really hot” “human feeling” fahrenheit scale you guys keep going on about.
Because 0° is the minimum a body is supposed to endure according to the tweet, and 100° is the maximum a body should endure.
So the ideal temperature should be right in the middle.
But it isn’t, so Fahrenheit isn’t “how people feel”.
50 degrees is a damn good temperature. I won’t stand here and let you besmirch 50 degrees.
Its not the “perfect” temperature but what temp in celcius is “perfect”? What a ridiculously proposition that there’s a perfect temperature.
As a European I can perfectly feel the 0 degree. I step outside and 5 seconds later I can tell you if it’s below zero or not.
For me “it’s now really hot” in summer is exactly when it’s over 30C. It being 86F doesn’t make any more sense. Approximately above 35C I will avoid going outside. Which would be 95F, not 100. From here, the temps in summer in the south of Europe are often around 100F at peak. Above or below doesn’t matter.
All that Fahrenheit scale is good for is if you live in a continental climate, more to the south, e.g. some useless place like Oklahoma, where 0F is approximately year low, and 100F is approximately year high.
For all other places, where the temperature delta over the course of the year is not as extreme, this Fahrenheit scale is as unintuitive as celcius, e.g. you just get used to it.
For me “it’s now really hot” in summer is exactly when it’s over 30C. It being 86F doesn’t make any more sense. Approximately above 35C I will avoid going outside. Which would be 95F, not 100. From here, the temps in summer in the south of Europe are often around 100F at peak. Above or below doesn’t matter.
you guys need to stop converting directly between temperatures, you’re right at 86f, bump it up to 90f and woah, suddenly it’s actually a nice round number.
You’re too conversion pilled to realize that the human experience isn’t fundamentally and objectively representative. 1 degree celsius isn’t super noticeable, just like 5 degrees fahrenheit isn’t super noticeable either.
otherwise 50° would be perfect temperature.
I love it when it’s 50ish out and sunny. You don’t get all sweaty, plus you can wear cozy socks and sweaters or just go out in short sleeves and both are perfectly fine. The bugs all start going into hiding at that temperature but the grass and leaves are still green
What annoys me about that phrasing, is that “how water feels” is quite relevant to how humans feel.
The obvious example is that if it’s below 0°C, it starts freezing, which causes slippery sidewalks, snow, dry air, all that stuff.
But just in general having a feeling how much water will evaporate and later precipitate at certain temperatures, and even stuff like how hot beverages and cooking temperatures are, it’s all still relevant for humans…
The obvious example is that if it’s below 0°C, it starts freezing, which causes slippery sidewalks, snow, dry air, all that stuff. But just in general having a feeling how much water will evaporate and later precipitate at certain temperatures, and even stuff like how hot beverages and cooking temperatures are, it’s all still relevant for humans…
that’s an interesting idea, BUT, the boiling point for water also exists under f as well, it’s just 212 f, which if you want to round for convenience, is 200f. 100f is just about half the boiling point of water.
I guess you celsius folks might be more water pilled than the average US citizen, but it’s not like it’s impossible.
In Celcius water boils at exactly 100°C, and you don’t have to round, and 50°C is exactly half the boiling point of water.
Yes, Celsius users are waterpilled: the whole system is based on the temperature at which water freezes and evaporates at 1 atm pressure.
(You’re just fucking with us right? Like Celsius is has a coarser base unit, and the range applicable to human temperatures are not such pretty numbers, but you can’t be seriously thinking Fahrenheit makes more sense for when we talk about water?)
100F is just about half
Your scale in water terms starts at 32. 100 is nowhere near halfway between 32 and 212
Fahrenheit is literally a German dude making a scale from, “scheiße its chilly outside” to “oh mein gott, its hot out!”
But really it is much better for human temperatures.
It’s just intuitive, 0F is 100% cold, and 100F is 100% hot.
When the dry bulb gets above 100F, wind only cools you down by sweat evaporation, and when the wet bulb gets above 100F, even that can’t cool you down, and you will die if you don’t get to a cooler or drier environment.
Lol, 0F is not 100% cold. That is barely cold unless you live in very warm place like tropic or something
“Intuitive” is a meaningless metric for a single scaled number. Whichever system you are used to will be the more “intuitive”.
Also, climate can play into which system feels more useful. Where I live, 100F occurs only rarely (and since air conditioning is almost ubiquitous, not something I’d bother looking out for), while 0C is an outdoor temperature that I do need to be aware of for half the year.
I disagree that either would be just as intuitive. Fahrenheit being 0=cold and 100=hot is intuitive because there are a lot of things we do in the world that exist on a scale of 0 - 100. Percentages, just off the bat. Also, fahrenheit has a higher degree of fidelity in the temperature range that we use.
Celsius’s general temperature scale is like -10 - 40 which is absolutely not intuitive because it doesn’t look like any other scale we use as humans. I agree that we get used to Celsius fast and it’s a fine it’s not like it’s super confusing (and Celsius is so much more useful scientifically).
Which system did you grow up with? Because I grew up from the start with Celsius und it is 100% intuitive to me. Everytime you americans use your funny temperature numbers I have to stop and use a tool for transforming it or I simply ignore it and go “low means cold and high means hot, how high? Ain’t nobody got time for dat!”
So I disagree with your notion that Fahrenheit is intuitive. The system you grew up with and have multiple experiences as reference points for, is the system you feel is intuitive is also my opinion.
It has only been 100°F once in the last century. Nobody has any point of reference to make this intuitive. 30°C/85°F is defined as hot around here. 40°C/100°F is defined as national emergency.
I love it when it’s -10% hot in winter nights or 110% hot around the equator. Makes perfect sense.
Yes, it does a better job of impressing that is all of the hot (or cold), and then 10% more than the difference between 38 and 43
i assure you, we who grew up with celsius absolutely know the dire difference between 38 and 43. 38 is death, 43 is the crimson realms where even souls wither.
all this “which one is better for x” is nonsense, you develop a feel for whichever you grew up with. it’s just that the math is less stupid with metric. that’s all.
How is 0F 100% cold though, most places will never get that cold, so it surely makes more sense to have 0F at freezing point of water and 100F at 38C?
Freezing point of pure water - but saltwater/brine freezes as a different temperature.
pure water at mean atmosphere pressure at sea level if we’re getting technical, but frankly human body temperature varies from 35.5C (95.9F) to 37.5C (99.5F) anyway, and that’s before considering when people are ill, so if we go down that route it falls apart quickly enough that the definition of 100 given above is clearly just as arbitrary
When I was out in SD recently the temperature was reaching 100F or above frequently and it sucked but it wasn’t that bad. Where I live in Cali and it gets that hot by the beach with humidity well into the 70% range sometimes I literally felt like I was about to die just sitting inside with a fan blowing right at me. Humidity is such a huge factor.
Fahrenheit is best for ambient temperatures. 0 F is what humans feel is a very cold day, and 100 F is what humans feel is a very hot day.
Celsius is best for literally everything else, but for humans feeling of ambient temperature Fahrenheit is best
100F was defined as the human body temperature (The guy they used had a cold or something so it’s off by a degree and a half.)
That’s useful for perception of heat. When the dry bulb gets above 100F, wind only cools you down by sweat evaporation, and when the wet bulb gets above 100F, even that can’t cool you down, and you will die if you don’t get to a cooler or drier environment.
This is more intuitive than 36.5C.
what Fahrenheit used for his endpoints was 1) the melting point of a brine mixture that he didn’t write down the ratio of, and 2) his wife’s armpit.
those “bulb” things is something i only ever hear of from americans. it’s never used here.
and I fail to see how two numbers are somehow differently intuitive. they are just numbers. also, 36.5 is too low. it’s pretty much 37.0 now, because average body temp has interestingly enough shifted since he took those measurements.
So you’re saying that 0 and 100 aren’t intuitively obvious? I find that really strange when it’s doing a better job keeping to base 10 than the metric system in this particular use case.
For Celsius, 0 is freezing cold and 100 is boiling hot - that’s intuitive too.
I have literally never felt 0°F in my life and couldn’t tell you how cold it is, just that it’s very cold. I believe everyone has a rough understanding how 0°C and 100°C feel though.
No, they’re not. I couldn’t tell what those numbers mean even if you asked, but I can tell what 0°C outside feels, and what 100°C sauna feels. I can also tell that 21°C is a nice ambient temperature for chilling, and 15-20°C is ideal for most outdoor sports.
Yeah sure those are not necessarily nice round numbers, but I’ve used the scale all my life so it’s intuitive to me, same as the Fahrentrash is intuitive to you
When it comes to a single number on a scale, whatever you grew up with will be more “obvious”. 100F doesn’t give me any more information than 38C does. The whole “base 10” thing only matters if you are actually doing some math to that number.
the numbers may be, but if you asked me to tell you what they feel like i would have to convert them to celsius first. where i live temperatures are generally between -30 and +30, and i could tell you in an instant what I would wear for a given temperature in that range. 50F though? no clue. since it’s right between 0 and 100 i guess it would be just right, temperature wise, so t-shirt and long pants?
Um. No.
If I said a movie was a 7/10, you would understand what that means because it’s a scale. You don’t have to “grow up” using a 0-10 scale to understand it.
Like if I asked you to rate something on a scale of 4-17, you’d understand what I mean. The numbers are different but the concept of a scale remains the same.
if I knew that you are a european and you told me a movie was 5/10, i would assume it was average. if i knew you were American, i would assume it was dogshit.
Americans have a weird relationship with numbers.
also, as mentioned in another post: if 0 is too cold and 100 is too hot, surely 50 would be a pleasant temperature?
Really not. Basically, you just need to peg feelings to a number, just like you are doing.
Celsius:
below -20 = deadly even with good gear, you can’t spend long here
-15 = very dangerous / deadly
-10 = starting to get dangerous
-5 = starting to get uncomfortable
0 = very cold
5 = cold
10 = a little cold
15 = cool
20 = nice
25 = warm
30 = hot
35 = starting to get uncomfortable
40 = starting to get dangerous
45 = very dangerous / deadly
50+ = deadly even with good gear, you can’t spend long here
ITT: Europeans tie their personal identity to an arbitrary scale for the expression of mean entropy.
I’m gonna be honest. I love Celsius for the the whole perfect math reasons with calories and water based measurement…
But the curve on temps is a pain when all the nice temperatures require using a decimal place to decide just how slightly above or below pleasant it is but cold is basically everything from 16°C to -30°C And then decimals really matter when hotter than pleasant temps.
Whole rounded integers are just so vastly different depending how high or low you are in Celsius.
I don’t know man, I’ve lived my entire life in a country that only uses Celsius and I’ve never seen a single place or person using decimals to display temperature we always use whole numbers.
I get your point but the difference in 1 degree in Celsius is still very insignificant to the point we don’t really need decimals at all.
I’ve been all over the world. Trust me seeing 21.6 or other decimals is not uncommon you and others are really just pushing hard on the ideas that there is no flaws and none of the quirks of Celsius.
I literally just set an air conditioner to 20.5°C. I don’t get why lie like this.
The reason you see fractions is BECAUSE of Fahrenheit. Your air conditioner is designed to work in multiple regions and so it works on steps. Easier to just map the half steps to Fahrenheit degrees and call it a day.
For non-electronic usage, people just say the round number.
That’s a really weird one, every apartment I’ve lived at the air conditioner only displays the temperature in integers and I’m 100% sure of that because every each one of them had arrows to change the temperature up or down in one unit.
Huh, I can only speak from my experience. I have a couple of thermometers in my room that give decimals, but my air con doesn’t give decimal options and the government meteorological service doesn’t either. I certainly don’t think I can tell the difference between 39 and 39.2.
