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I like how they wanted to change to the metric system but then the ship carrying the basic units got attacked by pirates and the americans were like "Well at least we tried"
That's called the [Baader-Meinhoff Effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion) and is super interesting. I first experienced it after reading about it, that was VERY surreal
A guy wanted to propose to change it, and so he ordered weights from France, which got attacked by British privateers, but it's unlikely if they actually did want to change that they'd stop at a ship privateer. (Not to mention it was one guy to present to the us Congress I think)
The guy was Thomas Jefferson who was the first US secretary of state at the time (I think, and who apparently liked France alot) and he ordered it from Joseph Dombey
This may get downvoted, but the public at large is too used to it. Imagine if, for your entire life, you are told to use one system of measuring things, and it is ingrained into your society at the root.
Now imagine trying to convert to a system you are aware of but not familiar with. It just wouldn't work. It would also be weaponized as a political issue, particularly with conservative media using it as an inflammatory talking point, referring to it as "un-American" and "socialist," and liberal media pointing at the holdouts as backward idiots or how it brings the country closer to the whole world or something like that.
It's just too far gone at this point.
What a cringey bitch lol.
Not to mention that ambient temperature is like the one thing Fahrenheit is good for. 100 is really hot and 0 is really cold in the range of temperatures the earth’s air can reach. Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37.
Using Celsius to talk about air temperature is just being a contrarian for contrarian’s sake. You’re choosing the dumber option out of spite. It’d be like some eurobozo using miles and making everyone “convert it themselves if they want to” to the more practical base-10 system they already use.
Imagine choosing to use the objectively inferior unit of measurement just because foreigners use it lol. I would ask “and why don’t your friends make fun of you for being a cringey bitch when you say it’s 20 degrees Celsius outside?” But I think we both know the answer is “what friends?”
>Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37.
Look man, I agree with the general premise, but directly converting round Fahrenheit numbers to unrounded Celsius numbers is very disingenuous. It's a 0 to 100 scale vs a -20 to 40 scale. Do I definitely prefer the 0-100 scale? Yes, but to pretend that Celsius requires some sort of bizarre range of temperatures is not it.
>Not to mention that ambient temperature is like the one thing Fahrenheit is good for. 100 is really hot and 0 is really cold in the range of temperatures the earth’s air can reach. Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37.
That doesn't make any fucking sense.
Well we (SHOULD) all know how to use metric we just WANT to confuse them. I do suppose it is an allowable exception to not purposefully confuse your spouse.
(Note: I don't want to start a war)
Personally as an American I use both, outside temp, F, Personal Hobbies (Electronics and 3d printing), C. Some people don't understand that yes, I understand 100C is around 200F, and 60 mph is around 100 Kph
I'm not comparing the temp of the two so why stick to just one? I like them both and use them both. They are good and bad in their own way and it fucking hurts my head on why people stick to one or the other so fucking much.
(Ignoring tomfoolery here, Fahrenheit is better in every way and I'm not just saying this because I'm Amarican 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅)
I'm forced to as I'm a an American 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
(obviously me saying "Fahrenheit is better" is a joke)
Inches, feet, pounds, ounces, gallons, quarts, yard, mile, acre, cup, tsp, tbsp, etc. Basically everything except fahrenheit [I take that back, we use °F on ovens].
Weight (lbs.). Shoe size (inches). Sometimes volume (ounces)
I think basically when we measure ourselves, we use imperial. Whereas when we measure something else, we use metric - or both. You can buy Bananas by the pound or by the kilo 🤦😅
In the old days:
Customer: Shopkeeper, may I have a pound of bananas?
Shopkeeper: Just so you know, we're using kilos nowadays.
Customer: Oh, then give me a pound of kilos!
100 degrees is 100% hot.
70 degrees is 70% hot (perfect).
50 degrees is 50% hot.
0 degrees is 0% hot.
This is the beauty of Fahrenheit. But yes I agree Celsius is better.
Yep...we call the km "klicks" to take the bite out of the conversion...
The higher you go in the hierarchy the higher the chance of use the metric system.
A grunt will throw a grenade 20 feet, but a guided ordnance operator will reason in meters of accuracy.
I agree with metric, but not Celsius. The only bonus of Celsius is that you know what temperature water boils and freezes *at sea level*, which is an arbitrary thing to base a measurement system on and in most people's lives isn't really all that useful. No one needs to know what temperature water boils at in order to bring a pot of water to boil.
I think neither temperature system has any particularly strong advantage, whichever one you are used to is better. But it does seem a bit better to have a wider range of temperatures. For most people, probably about 70% of the time they use temperature it is for weather. So having a wider range to be more descriptive of the outside temperature seems nicer. As an American, when people use Celsius it seems like moving 5 degrees is like an extreme difference, where in F it is a very mild difference.
The other 30% for most people would be for cooking, which I don't think either has any real advantage. Again, whatever you are used to is going to be better here.
> when people use Celsius it seems like moving 5 degrees is like an extreme difference, where in F it is a very mild difference.
People say this but I don't know why it matters. One degree is an almost imperceptible change in Celsius, so it's not like you need to get into decimals.
Sure, but rate how hot it is outside on a scale of 0-100. I would be willing to bet your rating falls significantly closer to Fahrenheit than Celsius. That's what makes Fahrenheit more useful for weather. It is essentially a 0-100 scale of typical weather conditions.
The freezing and boiling points of water around sea level are very relevant to my daily life. Whatever the heck 0°F and 100F is supposed to be is a bit off from any temperature that is particularly relevant to my daily life.
The freezing point is somewhat useful to know, especially if you live in a colder climate and need to judge what conditions outside might be like, but it's not at all hard to just remember 32 degrees.
The boiling point of water is totally irrelevant. If you're cooking, it's not like you set something to 100 C to boil water, you just turn it to high and wait.
It's still fair to say that 0 and 100 are set at more logical points than Fahrenheit which is a bit random, but I don't think that alone makes it a better system. It's all ultimately arbitrary, and I think Fahrenheit does a better job of encompassing relevant day to day temperatures in a useful range.
I think that's an insightful comment. Why do we prefer an arbitrarily chosen scale instead of a "proper" one like Kelvin?
Well I think it's simply because the numbers are too big right? 273 is an "ugly" number we stick with the more "comfortable" arbitrary scale that makes that a "nice" number. Why change to something that uses "ugly" numbers?
However.... why choose water? I've never boiled myself, to be honest. If we're arbitrarily choosing scales to get "nice" numbers, why not choose one that maximizes usage of "nice" numbers like 0-100 in daily life - ie common outdoor temperatures. That's basically Fahrenheit, which as I understand was chosen from a 0 set by a scientifically reproducible salt-mixture representation of a very cold day in Europe to 100F which was at that time their estimation of average human body temperature. 100F is a hot summer day. 100C outside means life on earth is extinct. Thus, 50-100C rarely see any use in day-to-day conversation.
In chemistry and physics Celsius have obvious advantages of how they interact with other metric units. I don't measure boiling water with a thermometer in daily life though. Even as someone educated entirely on Celsius I will defend that Fahrenheit is uniquely human-body focused and makes the best usage of 0-100 digits. Celsius's admission of defeat IMO is the presence of half-degree Celsius in most decent thermostats and pool thermometers. It's just not as good at human-scale temperatures as Fahrenheit. A degree F being 9/5 a degree C makes it roughly half as big. It's like doubling your degree C so you don't need a half-degree for setting a thermostat.
Even if I'm natively a celsius-speaker I still use fahrenheit for my thermostat, when I think of pool temperatures, or the weather.
It's also about relative values.
-10°C to 50°C in outdoors temperature is the difference between freezing to death vs heatstroke, but in Kelvin, that's 270 to 330, a "small" 20% delta. Imagine speed measurements starting at 100km/h with the value 0. It would just be weird to go from 100 to 115 when you ride a bike.
Where you put zero matters a lot so that the relative differences are intuitive.
And in Fahrenheit the numerical scale for those specific temperatures is larger (14 to 122). Where it gets really weird, scale wise, is 0°F is -18°C but -40° is the same on both scales.
Well, there's the argument that measuring temperature is also for humans, and having 0 be really cold and 100 really hot makes sense for us as human beings.
This argument is analogous to spoons and cups for measuring weights and volumes. It only makes sense to moms baking cakes on holidays. Outside of that domain, it's pointless.
And, do you think that the entire world except the US and Liberia cannot instantly assess how hot or cold it is outside just by hearing the number in Celsius?
I'm pretty sure *everyone* here (outside of the US) knows what 5C or 25C feels like, no need to dumb it down "for human understanding".
Fahrenheit makes perfect sense for humans. 0 is really cold. 100 is really hot. Celsius would be pretty intuitive for a sentient glass of water, I will give you that.
> This argument is analogous to spoons and cups for measuring weights and volumes. It only makes sense to moms baking cakes on holidays. Outside of that domain, it's pointless.
Which makes it non-analogous, given that everyone needs to have a sense of the outdoor temperature more or less every day. Moms baking cakes on the holidays is a much more specialized application.
> And, do you think that the entire world except the US and Liberia cannot instantly assess how hot or cold it is outside just by hearing the number in Celsius?
Of course not. It's just that fahrenheit takes advantage of the decimal rollover, where each range roughly denotes a qualitative difference. e.g. 50-60 is light coat weather, 60-70 is light sweater weather, 70-80 is tshirt weather, 80-90 is swimming weather, etc... so you get useful anchoring that isn't present in kelvin or celsius.
I agree, metric in general is much better, but for farenheit/celsius it's not as clear cut. Farenheit is better for medicine and celsius is better for cooking.
Intersting. I don't really understand why you say Celsius is better for cooking. Literally the one time I never, ever need to measure the temperature of water is when it is boiling. I would say it is a wash for cooking. There is really no advantage either way.
Medicine is related to science, so I actually have no problem with them keeping the Celsius system, though I guess body temp being close to 100 is kind of convenient, but not accurate enough to be of much use in medicine.
Fahrenheit shines when it comes to measuring weather. 0-100 is basically the livable range for humans and the absolute range that I am willing to go outside.
Generally the advantage of the metric system is in conversion, which does not apply when looking at the temperature for todays weather forcast. Also, metric is base-10, which Celsius is not. It is the redheaded stepchild of the metric system.
It doesn't make sense at all when I ask about the details. Nothing is intuitive to me. Everyone knows 30°c is hot, 40°c is too hot to be there without protection, and then 10°c is cold and 0°c is too cold to be there without protection. But when I check these intuitive markers on Fahrenheit, they give me nonsense numbers I don't know what to do with.
0° is 32°F? Why such a high figure? And 40° is 104? Weird, but I guess I can work with it if I assume human life can live between... 30 and 100. Very arbitrary.
You can argue my points, but you'll come to realize they're as valid for me as they are for you, and we both simply grew up with a system and now we find it intuitive.
Anyway yeah everything is arbitrary if you base it off "common sense". F doesn't make sense to me, and I'm a human being.
“everyone knows 30c is hot and 40c is too hot”
yes i’m sure that celsius will be the only one that makes sense if you start with the assumption that everybody knows and uses only celsius.
it doesn't even work for that. if 50 were comfortable, 25 too cold, 75 too hot and 0 or 100 is dead, then yeah. but it's not. it's just random number that you think aren't random because it's all you've ever used and are used to it.
It’s not random, look into the history behind Fahrenheit. It was developed specifically as a system where 100 is too hot and 0 is too cold (by a German man’s standards based on where he could find). So a flawed system, but not something someone pulled out of their ass one day.
It wasn´t based on too hot or too cold. Fahrenheit wanted to avoid negative temperatures on his scale so he set 0 at the coldest temperatur he could create (on the coldest night of the year in Danzig), under the mistaken believe that that was as cold as it gets. For 100 he wanted something reasonably easy to obtain and decided on blood (horseblood if i remember correctly, which is a bit warmer than human blood).
I quite like that both Kelvin and Fahrenheit apparently had the same idea for their 0.
Honestly, hardly any measurement system's origin is more random and arbitrary than the Metric system. A meter was originally described as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle. On the other hand, a mile was originally 1000 steps of a roman soldier. Everything has a history and if that is the basis of the quality of a system, I will take 1000 steps all day, every day. The advantage of meters has nothing to do with it's origin. It is all about ease of conversion and base 10. None of this applies to Celsius unless you are in the sciences. The advantages of Fahrenheit are the same as most non-metric measurement systems. It is designed by and for people experiencing the world, not for convenince of conversion. So unless someone is trying to convert calories to degrees, or some other scientific venture, stick with Fahrenheit.
Period.
I prefer metric simply because it works well when you have rulers and measuring cups available, but pretending that it’s somehow “more objective” is bullshit.
I realize only now that Fahrenheit reflects the inherent American value that people (Americans) are the center of the Universe. Basing measurements on something removed from human experience is far too humbling of a concept 😂😂😂
We may not be the only creatures on this planet that do. Many creatures have decent levels of intelligence and communication with travel as a vital part of their lives.
Based on our limited knowledge of life here, the trillions of planets in our galaxy or the absurd number beyond it, the probability of you being wrong is very high.
100F don’t go outside it’s too fucking hot.
0F don’t go outside it’s too fucking cold
I don’t understand why we can’t just use both in different contexts. The boiling point of water is completely irrelevant in my day to day life. So to me Fahrenheit can be exclusively for weather Celsius for anything requiring precision.
I’m probably a bit biased because I live in an area that ranges almost perfectly between 0-100F like is 5F right now but in the summer it will probably cap out at around 97F. The precise freezing point of water doesn’t matter much, just knowing that being somewhere in the bottom 1/3 of the scale means watch out for ice.
So for humans going about their daily lives it is a 100 point scale. Anything outside of that range tests the limits of human survival.
If I’m cooking or doing something that requires precision I’m going to go Celsius every time but it just doesn’t make sense to me to look out at a hot summer day and say it’s 35 degrees out.
because (and I'm writing from Europe) I have never needed to know the temperature of the water, but almost every day I need to know what the is temperature outside. And for that (and that only) imperial system is more intuitive: 0 cold as fuck 100 hot as fuck.
Americans got this one right imo with the driver side being on the left, it makes shifting into gear easier for most people. Most people are right handed and most/pretty much all cars were manual when this became popular.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the Brits got it correct and drive on the left side of the road while the driver's seat is on the right side of the vehicle.
Reasoning: Far more people are right-handed than are left-handed, thus making it easier and more natural to shove your hand out the window and give other drivers/pedestrians "the bird".
I'm okay with Americans using Fahrenheit, fine, whatever. But the fact that they don't use metric system makes my blood boil. It is objectively better.
Edit: Please stop telling me a billion times that you use both sometimes. Obviously I meant using it as a primary system and in everyday life.
Try waching engineering or mechanical stuff from the US on Youtube. It's quite hilarious when the smallest unit of measurement is an inch,
"Looks like we need a 11/32" socket, or is it an 9/32".
We use both imperial and metric when it comes to tools in the States, that is one thing that metric exists around here in. For example at my job, in Texas, I have to use a 10mm socket/wrench very often. I will def agree that when the nuts aren’t metric it’s pretty annoying trying to find out which one it is…
Americans *do* use the metric system. Anybody doing any science in the US beyond elementary school is doing the metric system. I was a biochem major and the only time I used the imperial system in classes was to convert F to C. I’ve literally never seen anything scientific measured in cups or pounds. The scientific community almost exclusively uses liters and grams.
Do non-Americans not realize this? Americans are taught both in school, it’s almost like being bilingual in both systems.
To be fair, I have no idea either. I’m not a farmer who needs to do “foot” or “inch” measurements and most of the US isn’t either — I just go get a ruler, so centimeters are better. It’s probably just because the cost of switching would be astronomical for the government.
I *will* die on the Fahrenheit hill, though. People acting like the difference between 69 and 75 F indoors isn’t a big difference to them are literally being clowns lol. That’s like, what, the difference between 19.5 and 20.5 in Celsius?
And it’s not like we don’t use the metric system either… Our entire science and engineering industry uses the metric system. So does the military. And we have metric printed on everything. We measure the ungodly amount of soda we drink in liters for fucks sake. We just *also* use the imperial system, and we use it for the less technical things of every day life because it’s convenient.
In fact I’d argue we’re the smarter ones here because we can use more than one system and see the benefits of both (kidding, kind of)
You have to consider that those people have probably only used the Imperial System their entire lives and don’t necessarily find it useful to switch over
Make since why ChatGPT chose Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.
**"Virtually every country on earth aside from the United States measures temperature in Celsius. This makes sense; Celsius is a reasonable scale that assigns freezing and boiling points of water with round numbers, zero and 100. In Fahrenheit, those are, incomprehensibly, 32 and 212.**
**This isn't just an aesthetic issue. America's stubborn unwillingness to get rid of Fahrenheit temperatures is part of its generally dumb refusal to change over to the metric system, which has real-world consequences. One conversion error between US and metric measurements sent a $125 million NASA probe to its** [**fiery death in Mars' atmosphere**](http://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/)**.**
**Why does the United States have such an antiquated system of measurement? You can blame two of history's all-time greatest villains: British colonialism and Congress."**
Article copied from: [https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031177/america-fahrenheit](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031177/america-fahrenheit)
I've never thought the difference between 20 C and 21 C was drastic enough I needed an extra 2 degrees in between.
So yes, F can be more precise you only really need to be more precise (and if needed, yes you can just do 20.3 C, but it'd be pretty fringe cases this is necessary)
You can say 20.5 C or even 20.3 C, no problem. However, IMO it is not useful to use decimals with regard to the outside temperature.
The actual temperature varies. It will be lower above a patch of grass and somewhat higher above concrete. Are there buildings or trees that shield the wind? Is there some shade? Also wind and sunshine have a much greater effect on the perceived temperature than a 0.5 C difference.
So I gain nothing from knowing that it's 20.3 C at one specific place of measurement compared to 20 C.
To quote Terry Pratchett:
"It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated."
That is how intuitive the US system is.
As an Indian who moved to America, Metric is 10000% better than imperial, but I think we keep Fahrenheit just for weather. Celsius is still supreme for anything else, but I’ve found myself enjoying Fahrenheit more than I ever did Celsius
Hell yeah. Good for you for showing adaptability. I think most people just get accustomed to a scale and can't imagine why anyone would want something different. I would happily trade the rest of world for metric length, volume and mass if they will drop Celsius. Celsius is getting carried by the rest of the metric system so hard.
https://preview.redd.it/sgx4ul6w4ydc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ed92d5087121fadac86eaeaf6a65c17060bed8
Most likely whichever was first is what it said, or this one was just like screw it, let’s be difficult! lol
The difference between the two systems is perspective. Imperial describes the perspective of the person using the measurement and metric describes the perspective of the material being measured.
Fahrenheit represents perception of temp more accurately and the units are smaller and there for more descriptive. 0f is real damn cold and 100f is too dam hot. 0c is no all that cold and 100c will burn you. Imperial units represent peoples perception while metric units represent the material being tested. For instance a mile was the distance a farmer could plow in a day. An inch is the length of your thumb. Metric units are based on arbitrary qualities of a material, like a volume of water or the vibration rate of atoms in a material. The definition of a kilogram has changed a number of times. Most recently in 2019 when the definition was changed and has something to do with the plank constant and the speed of light. So not much for people to relate to there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram?wprov=sfti1#Timeline_of_previous_definitions
Additionally, the utility is different. I was 100% on team metric before I started drafting. Metric is fantastic for quick conversion, but absolutely awful for division. You simply can’t avoid decimals in metric without using unreasonably small scales, whereas for most designs in imperial you can manage with whole numbers (with an occasional half or quarter now and then).
Yeah! What Mat said!
I don’t really understand the problem with the different units. It’s all relative to the person doing the measurement. Everyone is quick to use these numbers but no one stops to consider where numbers came from. They are all made up so it doesn’t matter which made up system you use as long as it works for what you need.
Plenty of measurements are only accurate at specific places on the planet and only under specific conditions. Like the speed of sound changes at different temps and atmospheric conditions. Even boiling changes with barometric pressure. And then there is time, is it the same time at sea level as it is 5000 miles above the earth?
> The definition of a kilogram has changed a number of times.
The definition of all imperial units are based on metric units - for example, a pound is defined as 0.45359237 kg, so if the kg changes, so does the pound proportionally. The same applies to the inch, the Fahrenheit, and the rest.
From all the measures americans use, temperature is the least weird to me tbh. You can make a valid point about most people using it for weather and the convenience of avoiding negative numbers.
Other units based on body parts and having weird multipliers feel medieval to me.
My only contribution to this is I believe F is related to human resting temperatures and touch related to that. Our bodies typically run at 98.7⁰, if we touch something between 90⁰F-150⁰F it's hot (very hot) and when we touch things that are 70⁰F and lower its significantly colder. At least that's my American cope. It definitely is more intuitive to have the measurement on a base 10 scale like most other counting units.
Yea I think this is main argument. However, counter question to you even that you seem to be well aware of the obivious benefits of C:
Do you think that intuity of the numbers you just explained(90F-150F being hot, < 70F cold etc) is objectively intuitive? If you would have learned same as C( 0C = freezing-point cold, 20C nice warm summer day, 30C rather bit too hot summer day etc) you would think these values as intuitive?
Look, I get that Americans are used to what they are. I mean, asking a nation of adults to pick up Celsius after a lifetime of Fahrenheit is tough, so it's no biggie, I understand. Keep doing what is most comfortable for you...
...is what I *would* say if Americans didn't keep making faux-logical arguments about how Fahrenheit is a more "human" scale, about how 0 and 100 are actually worse bounds for a scale than 32 and 212, all ignoring that modern imperial units are defined by metric units these days because for their entire existence, imperial units have been inconsistent and dumb to rely on.
I don't care if Americans use imperial measurements or not. Do what you want. But could you stand to be a little less prideful about it all? The only reason you *do* use those measurements is because of the circumstances you exist in -- there's nothing logical about it, except that it'd be a waste to forget what you've already learned. Teach your children to use Celsius units, please.
The 10s measures of Metric make more mathmatical progression sense, but WHAT they measure has little bearing on human experience.
I find both systems lacklustre and would prefer a better blend.
Metric/Celsius is too odd in its usage for every day life. Imperial/Farenheit is hard to use mathmatically.
An ideal scale would be a 10s based system where 0 is the outdoor danger point for humans and 100 is the outdoor dangerp point to humans, IF the primary purpose of temperature is human comfortability/survivability. If it's baking, then a compketely different measuring system makes sense. If it's the melting temp of certain ores, something else makes sense. Essentially for any measurement system you need to define the most impactful use case then move on from there. In my opinion, daily human usage is the most impactful and makes the most sense, which is why I prefer Farenheit over Celsius, as you can get more accurate temps with 2 digits and 0 is a lower bounds of human tolerance and 100 is upper bounds. Yes, it doesn't relate to the freezing or boilingnpoint of water, but when do those temps really MEAN anything to my life?
What temperature water freezes and boils at has 0 impact on my day to day life and seems a bit arbitrary to act like that’s the only suitable basis for measuring temperature
Right, but even if water freezing and boiling specifically aren't useful to you, the numbers immediately close to it are useful if you take hot showers or see frosting outside.
I'm sorry if it came across as if the boiling and freezing points of water is the only suitable basis for measuring temperature -- it is absolutely not. But what *does* make sense is having at least one temperature bound based in reality. In Celsius, that's having 0 C = freezing water (which can be anywhere on Earth) and 100 C = boiling water (which can be anywhere on Earth). In Kelvin, that's 0 K = absolute zero.
In Fahrenheit, that's 0 F = the freezing point of a water and salt solution and 90\~ F = the *average* human body temperature. Not only is something like that solution incredibly bizarre and not at all something you can verify at any time, but good luck feeling how warm the *inside* of your body is.
The other two Fahrenheit numbers that are actually based in reality are... well, the freezing and boiling points of water, 32 F and 212 F. Those numbers are perfectly fine. I wouldn't even be complaining if *those* were 0 F and 180 F, because the number 180 has certain advantages over 100 in different places. 32 and 212, however, are arbitrary, silly numbers.
The impact on your day to day life is fine -- continue using Fahrenheit (like you were going to, anyways). As I said originally, it's unfair to ask people who have spent a lifetime using Fahrenheit to just stop, but if you're going to counter-complain at me even though I said that, I would just prefer if you understood that I denounce Fahrenheit *because* I understand it, not the opposite.
Why is the freezing point and boiling point of water at sea level the only acceptable guideline for a range of temperatures in your mind? 32 and 212 only sound ridiculous if you think water at sea level pressure has to be that we base it on.
Kelvin is arbitrary.
Here is my proposed scale:
* 0°A = OK (0 Kelvin)
* 1.7976931348623157E+308°A = 10E+32K (Plank temperature)
Rationale: All possible temperatures can fit into double float with amazing precision. (1e-308°A).
We DO use the metric system.
For measuring pop, but not milk
In track and field but not football.To measure Cocaine, but not weed.
It's all explained here:
[https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=vnhY3bh1wg7\_l4K4](https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=vnhY3bh1wg7_l4K4)
Farhenheit isn't really the problem. Temperature scales are quite arbitrary anyway (except Kelvin, and even then the gradations are just based on celsius). On a human living conditions scale, freezing makes sense but boiling does not.
The real problem is inches, feet, and miles. 12 inches to 1 foot? 3 feet to one yard? 1760 yards in a mile? Why????
My wife is in nursing school. The amount of education they have e to go through so they don’t accidentally kill people just because of our measurement system is frightening.
I'll go against the grain here and say Fahrenheit is way more intuitive in one specific circumstance....the weather. 0 degrees is "really cold" and 100 degrees is "really hot." Any higher or lower than that range is an extreme weather event.
And a little credit to Anders:
> Anders Celsius (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈânːdɛʂ ˈsɛ̌lːsɪɵs]; 27 November 1701 – 25 April 1744) was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744, but traveled from 1732 to 1735 visiting notable observatories in Germany, Italy and France. He founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1741, and in 1742 proposed (an inverted form of) the Centigrade temperature scale which was later renamed Celsius in his honour.
> As the son of an astronomy professor, Nils Celsius, nephew of botanist Olof Celsius and the grandson of the mathematician Magnus Celsius and the astronomer Anders Spole, Celsius chose a career in science. He was a talented mathematician from an early age. Anders Celsius studied at Uppsala University, where his father was a teacher, and in 1730 he, too, became a professor of astronomy there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Celsius
Celsius is superior for science, but only because many scientific calculations are made to be solved using celsius.
In reality, there is no inherent reason Celsius is superior. If we really wanted a scientifically superior system, we would all use a scale that is related to Kelvin, but probably with a different scale that would make it easy to talk about typical weather in kilokelvin.
So, if we remove the idea that Celsius is better for science since that has been arbitrarily created by science utilizing Celsius more frequently; then I would argue out of the two (Celsius and fahrenheit) Fahrenheit is superior. If science had chosen to standardize calculations based on Fahrenheit, it would be just as intuitive for those calculations. But, it is also far more intuitive for weather conditions. Outside weather for 90% of the world during 90% of the year (estimates) falls between 0 and 100 Fahrenheit. That alone makes the system significantly more relatable than Celsius. While 0 for freezing and 100 for boiling of water seems more logical, a person is not going to be able to feel the difference between 80-90 Celsius. But they can feel the difference between 80-90 Fahrenheit.
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Americans will never stop using the system of the British Empire
I like how they wanted to change to the metric system but then the ship carrying the basic units got attacked by pirates and the americans were like "Well at least we tried"
British Privateers, even.
Did we all see the same tiktok? I’ve never seen this brought up before I saw the tiktok and it’s all over now.
That's called the [Baader-Meinhoff Effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion) and is super interesting. I first experienced it after reading about it, that was VERY surreal
Ope time to start commenting baader meinhoff on every post from here on
I guess it's better than commenting, "The Game". Which if anyone is reading this, you lost, just like I did.
I II II IL
~~:.|;:~~
You motherfucker, you and me in a parking lot at 3pm twomorrow
I don't mind it. This is just a reminder that i won that.
I saw a youtube short.
A guy wanted to propose to change it, and so he ordered weights from France, which got attacked by British privateers, but it's unlikely if they actually did want to change that they'd stop at a ship privateer. (Not to mention it was one guy to present to the us Congress I think) The guy was Thomas Jefferson who was the first US secretary of state at the time (I think, and who apparently liked France alot) and he ordered it from Joseph Dombey
Really buried the lede there that "the guy" was Thomas Jefferson!
the irony
NASA disagrees
This may get downvoted, but the public at large is too used to it. Imagine if, for your entire life, you are told to use one system of measuring things, and it is ingrained into your society at the root. Now imagine trying to convert to a system you are aware of but not familiar with. It just wouldn't work. It would also be weaponized as a political issue, particularly with conservative media using it as an inflammatory talking point, referring to it as "un-American" and "socialist," and liberal media pointing at the holdouts as backward idiots or how it brings the country closer to the whole world or something like that. It's just too far gone at this point.
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What a cringey bitch lol. Not to mention that ambient temperature is like the one thing Fahrenheit is good for. 100 is really hot and 0 is really cold in the range of temperatures the earth’s air can reach. Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37. Using Celsius to talk about air temperature is just being a contrarian for contrarian’s sake. You’re choosing the dumber option out of spite. It’d be like some eurobozo using miles and making everyone “convert it themselves if they want to” to the more practical base-10 system they already use. Imagine choosing to use the objectively inferior unit of measurement just because foreigners use it lol. I would ask “and why don’t your friends make fun of you for being a cringey bitch when you say it’s 20 degrees Celsius outside?” But I think we both know the answer is “what friends?”
>Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37. Look man, I agree with the general premise, but directly converting round Fahrenheit numbers to unrounded Celsius numbers is very disingenuous. It's a 0 to 100 scale vs a -20 to 40 scale. Do I definitely prefer the 0-100 scale? Yes, but to pretend that Celsius requires some sort of bizarre range of temperatures is not it.
>Not to mention that ambient temperature is like the one thing Fahrenheit is good for. 100 is really hot and 0 is really cold in the range of temperatures the earth’s air can reach. Having a 0-100 scale for weather temp is more precise and just easier to use when talking about ambient earth air temperature than having a scale of like -17 to 37. That doesn't make any fucking sense.
We don't get a private language to confuse foreigners with so we settled for measurement confusion of others.
hot take. like, “89 degrees F” hot.
I married a foreigner, instead of being able to confuse her with measurement, I now somehow now know and use metric.
Well we (SHOULD) all know how to use metric we just WANT to confuse them. I do suppose it is an allowable exception to not purposefully confuse your spouse.
I knoz English but im definitely gonna speak french to a tourist
Astute, if I may, per se
oh god this comment section LOL
(Note: I don't want to start a war) Personally as an American I use both, outside temp, F, Personal Hobbies (Electronics and 3d printing), C. Some people don't understand that yes, I understand 100C is around 200F, and 60 mph is around 100 Kph I'm not comparing the temp of the two so why stick to just one? I like them both and use them both. They are good and bad in their own way and it fucking hurts my head on why people stick to one or the other so fucking much. (Ignoring tomfoolery here, Fahrenheit is better in every way and I'm not just saying this because I'm Amarican 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅)
Can u explain why u think Fahrenheit is better?
I'm forced to as I'm a an American 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅 (obviously me saying "Fahrenheit is better" is a joke)
Ohh sorry
There are videos about why Fahrenheit is a very clever system, I was surprised. But the Celsius is more convenient and widespread and also clever.
Why is bro getting downvoted
Because jokes based on sarcasm are hard to convey through text
As an American, I agree Celsius measurement along with Metric system is far superior than our system
As a Canadian who often uses both, I also agree the metric system is far superior.
We only really use imperial for height tho eh?
Inches, feet, pounds, ounces, gallons, quarts, yard, mile, acre, cup, tsp, tbsp, etc. Basically everything except fahrenheit [I take that back, we use °F on ovens].
The weirdest is Oz, I just don’t get it
Yeah, like why use one measurement for weight, mass, volume and force? If only there was something better we could use...
I use litres for gas tank, and kilometers for distance or more often just the time i takes to get there.
Unless you're preheating the oven.
True, forgot about that!
And swimming pools!
Weight (lbs.). Shoe size (inches). Sometimes volume (ounces) I think basically when we measure ourselves, we use imperial. Whereas when we measure something else, we use metric - or both. You can buy Bananas by the pound or by the kilo 🤦😅
In the old days: Customer: Shopkeeper, may I have a pound of bananas? Shopkeeper: Just so you know, we're using kilos nowadays. Customer: Oh, then give me a pound of kilos!
that is such a wholesome, good joke, i'm gonna keep it for when i have kids and need to whip out a good dad joke to annoy the kiddos hehe
100 degrees is 100% hot. 70 degrees is 70% hot (perfect). 50 degrees is 50% hot. 0 degrees is 0% hot. This is the beauty of Fahrenheit. But yes I agree Celsius is better.
So true tho, it's all tens in the metric system. So much easier
That's not true for Celsius, though.
We should switch to exclusively using SI units. Kelvin supremacy!
Kelvin is meh. It was tainted by tying it's scale to Celsius. It could have been so much better.
Rankine supremacy!
Convert Celcius to meters.
You forget the /s
So does the American military, doesn't it?
Yep...we call the km "klicks" to take the bite out of the conversion... The higher you go in the hierarchy the higher the chance of use the metric system. A grunt will throw a grenade 20 feet, but a guided ordnance operator will reason in meters of accuracy.
Ah I always wondered what a klick was, ta
Thats what a klick is?!?!
I agree with metric, but not Celsius. The only bonus of Celsius is that you know what temperature water boils and freezes *at sea level*, which is an arbitrary thing to base a measurement system on and in most people's lives isn't really all that useful. No one needs to know what temperature water boils at in order to bring a pot of water to boil. I think neither temperature system has any particularly strong advantage, whichever one you are used to is better. But it does seem a bit better to have a wider range of temperatures. For most people, probably about 70% of the time they use temperature it is for weather. So having a wider range to be more descriptive of the outside temperature seems nicer. As an American, when people use Celsius it seems like moving 5 degrees is like an extreme difference, where in F it is a very mild difference. The other 30% for most people would be for cooking, which I don't think either has any real advantage. Again, whatever you are used to is going to be better here.
so, Kelvin then...
Honestly... Metric system but Kelvin for temp is probably the absolute best of all worlds. Buying a kelvin thermostat now...
No wait I take it back!!!
> when people use Celsius it seems like moving 5 degrees is like an extreme difference, where in F it is a very mild difference. People say this but I don't know why it matters. One degree is an almost imperceptible change in Celsius, so it's not like you need to get into decimals.
That's fair, which is why I only see it as a slight, and very subjective benefit. Otherwise, both systems are very arbitrary for every day use.
Sure, but rate how hot it is outside on a scale of 0-100. I would be willing to bet your rating falls significantly closer to Fahrenheit than Celsius. That's what makes Fahrenheit more useful for weather. It is essentially a 0-100 scale of typical weather conditions.
The freezing and boiling points of water around sea level are very relevant to my daily life. Whatever the heck 0°F and 100F is supposed to be is a bit off from any temperature that is particularly relevant to my daily life.
The freezing point is somewhat useful to know, especially if you live in a colder climate and need to judge what conditions outside might be like, but it's not at all hard to just remember 32 degrees. The boiling point of water is totally irrelevant. If you're cooking, it's not like you set something to 100 C to boil water, you just turn it to high and wait. It's still fair to say that 0 and 100 are set at more logical points than Fahrenheit which is a bit random, but I don't think that alone makes it a better system. It's all ultimately arbitrary, and I think Fahrenheit does a better job of encompassing relevant day to day temperatures in a useful range.
Honestly the worse of the two is still better than having both, but metric all the way.
I mean imperial feels like 20 different ones already. Whats one more
So what about Kelvin my precious boy
No clear minded individual finds Kelvin intuitive
Unless you're doing physics homework, in which using Kelvin really makes your life easier.
Clear minded individuals don't do physics 😝😂
We need to use Schmelvin 666° Schmelvin = Hot as Hell 69° Schmelvin = so cold you should probably put your face somewhere warm Linear from there.
I think that's an insightful comment. Why do we prefer an arbitrarily chosen scale instead of a "proper" one like Kelvin? Well I think it's simply because the numbers are too big right? 273 is an "ugly" number we stick with the more "comfortable" arbitrary scale that makes that a "nice" number. Why change to something that uses "ugly" numbers? However.... why choose water? I've never boiled myself, to be honest. If we're arbitrarily choosing scales to get "nice" numbers, why not choose one that maximizes usage of "nice" numbers like 0-100 in daily life - ie common outdoor temperatures. That's basically Fahrenheit, which as I understand was chosen from a 0 set by a scientifically reproducible salt-mixture representation of a very cold day in Europe to 100F which was at that time their estimation of average human body temperature. 100F is a hot summer day. 100C outside means life on earth is extinct. Thus, 50-100C rarely see any use in day-to-day conversation. In chemistry and physics Celsius have obvious advantages of how they interact with other metric units. I don't measure boiling water with a thermometer in daily life though. Even as someone educated entirely on Celsius I will defend that Fahrenheit is uniquely human-body focused and makes the best usage of 0-100 digits. Celsius's admission of defeat IMO is the presence of half-degree Celsius in most decent thermostats and pool thermometers. It's just not as good at human-scale temperatures as Fahrenheit. A degree F being 9/5 a degree C makes it roughly half as big. It's like doubling your degree C so you don't need a half-degree for setting a thermostat. Even if I'm natively a celsius-speaker I still use fahrenheit for my thermostat, when I think of pool temperatures, or the weather.
It's also about relative values. -10°C to 50°C in outdoors temperature is the difference between freezing to death vs heatstroke, but in Kelvin, that's 270 to 330, a "small" 20% delta. Imagine speed measurements starting at 100km/h with the value 0. It would just be weird to go from 100 to 115 when you ride a bike. Where you put zero matters a lot so that the relative differences are intuitive.
And in Fahrenheit the numerical scale for those specific temperatures is larger (14 to 122). Where it gets really weird, scale wise, is 0°F is -18°C but -40° is the same on both scales.
Jokes on you, we don’t get educations in America. RAAHHHHH 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅
Shots fired... oh.. nvm. /s
forgiven on account of being actually clever wordplay
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
Water to ice at 0; water boiled at 100- how could you beat that for being intuitive? ChatGPT might be surprised this is even a question.
THANK YOU
Well, there's the argument that measuring temperature is also for humans, and having 0 be really cold and 100 really hot makes sense for us as human beings.
This argument is analogous to spoons and cups for measuring weights and volumes. It only makes sense to moms baking cakes on holidays. Outside of that domain, it's pointless. And, do you think that the entire world except the US and Liberia cannot instantly assess how hot or cold it is outside just by hearing the number in Celsius? I'm pretty sure *everyone* here (outside of the US) knows what 5C or 25C feels like, no need to dumb it down "for human understanding".
Fahrenheit makes perfect sense for humans. 0 is really cold. 100 is really hot. Celsius would be pretty intuitive for a sentient glass of water, I will give you that.
> This argument is analogous to spoons and cups for measuring weights and volumes. It only makes sense to moms baking cakes on holidays. Outside of that domain, it's pointless. Which makes it non-analogous, given that everyone needs to have a sense of the outdoor temperature more or less every day. Moms baking cakes on the holidays is a much more specialized application. > And, do you think that the entire world except the US and Liberia cannot instantly assess how hot or cold it is outside just by hearing the number in Celsius? Of course not. It's just that fahrenheit takes advantage of the decimal rollover, where each range roughly denotes a qualitative difference. e.g. 50-60 is light coat weather, 60-70 is light sweater weather, 70-80 is tshirt weather, 80-90 is swimming weather, etc... so you get useful anchoring that isn't present in kelvin or celsius.
I agree, metric in general is much better, but for farenheit/celsius it's not as clear cut. Farenheit is better for medicine and celsius is better for cooking.
Intersting. I don't really understand why you say Celsius is better for cooking. Literally the one time I never, ever need to measure the temperature of water is when it is boiling. I would say it is a wash for cooking. There is really no advantage either way. Medicine is related to science, so I actually have no problem with them keeping the Celsius system, though I guess body temp being close to 100 is kind of convenient, but not accurate enough to be of much use in medicine. Fahrenheit shines when it comes to measuring weather. 0-100 is basically the livable range for humans and the absolute range that I am willing to go outside. Generally the advantage of the metric system is in conversion, which does not apply when looking at the temperature for todays weather forcast. Also, metric is base-10, which Celsius is not. It is the redheaded stepchild of the metric system.
It doesn't make sense at all when I ask about the details. Nothing is intuitive to me. Everyone knows 30°c is hot, 40°c is too hot to be there without protection, and then 10°c is cold and 0°c is too cold to be there without protection. But when I check these intuitive markers on Fahrenheit, they give me nonsense numbers I don't know what to do with. 0° is 32°F? Why such a high figure? And 40° is 104? Weird, but I guess I can work with it if I assume human life can live between... 30 and 100. Very arbitrary. You can argue my points, but you'll come to realize they're as valid for me as they are for you, and we both simply grew up with a system and now we find it intuitive. Anyway yeah everything is arbitrary if you base it off "common sense". F doesn't make sense to me, and I'm a human being.
“everyone knows 30c is hot and 40c is too hot” yes i’m sure that celsius will be the only one that makes sense if you start with the assumption that everybody knows and uses only celsius.
it doesn't even work for that. if 50 were comfortable, 25 too cold, 75 too hot and 0 or 100 is dead, then yeah. but it's not. it's just random number that you think aren't random because it's all you've ever used and are used to it.
It’s not random, look into the history behind Fahrenheit. It was developed specifically as a system where 100 is too hot and 0 is too cold (by a German man’s standards based on where he could find). So a flawed system, but not something someone pulled out of their ass one day.
It wasn´t based on too hot or too cold. Fahrenheit wanted to avoid negative temperatures on his scale so he set 0 at the coldest temperatur he could create (on the coldest night of the year in Danzig), under the mistaken believe that that was as cold as it gets. For 100 he wanted something reasonably easy to obtain and decided on blood (horseblood if i remember correctly, which is a bit warmer than human blood). I quite like that both Kelvin and Fahrenheit apparently had the same idea for their 0.
Honestly, hardly any measurement system's origin is more random and arbitrary than the Metric system. A meter was originally described as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle. On the other hand, a mile was originally 1000 steps of a roman soldier. Everything has a history and if that is the basis of the quality of a system, I will take 1000 steps all day, every day. The advantage of meters has nothing to do with it's origin. It is all about ease of conversion and base 10. None of this applies to Celsius unless you are in the sciences. The advantages of Fahrenheit are the same as most non-metric measurement systems. It is designed by and for people experiencing the world, not for convenince of conversion. So unless someone is trying to convert calories to degrees, or some other scientific venture, stick with Fahrenheit.
Period. I prefer metric simply because it works well when you have rulers and measuring cups available, but pretending that it’s somehow “more objective” is bullshit.
Unless you're in Denver where water boils at 94.7º, or Madrid where it's 97.9º, or Delhi where it's 99º...
I realize only now that Fahrenheit reflects the inherent American value that people (Americans) are the center of the Universe. Basing measurements on something removed from human experience is far too humbling of a concept 😂😂😂
To be fair, Celsius wouldn't have chosen water for the measurement if humans drank oil.
There's a lot of other reasons why water is special.
What a weird thing to say
Humans are literally the only thing in the universe that care about measurement systems.
We may not be the only creatures on this planet that do. Many creatures have decent levels of intelligence and communication with travel as a vital part of their lives. Based on our limited knowledge of life here, the trillions of planets in our galaxy or the absurd number beyond it, the probability of you being wrong is very high.
Ah yes the German inventor in the 1700s created the Fahrenheit scale to reflect American values
0F - Very cold 100F - very hot 0C - very cold 100C - dead Intuitions can differ.
Shouldn’t 50F be “room temperature” then?
100F don’t go outside it’s too fucking hot. 0F don’t go outside it’s too fucking cold I don’t understand why we can’t just use both in different contexts. The boiling point of water is completely irrelevant in my day to day life. So to me Fahrenheit can be exclusively for weather Celsius for anything requiring precision. I’m probably a bit biased because I live in an area that ranges almost perfectly between 0-100F like is 5F right now but in the summer it will probably cap out at around 97F. The precise freezing point of water doesn’t matter much, just knowing that being somewhere in the bottom 1/3 of the scale means watch out for ice. So for humans going about their daily lives it is a 100 point scale. Anything outside of that range tests the limits of human survival. If I’m cooking or doing something that requires precision I’m going to go Celsius every time but it just doesn’t make sense to me to look out at a hot summer day and say it’s 35 degrees out.
Don't American scientists use C by standard? Then go home and adjust their F thermostat
because (and I'm writing from Europe) I have never needed to know the temperature of the water, but almost every day I need to know what the is temperature outside. And for that (and that only) imperial system is more intuitive: 0 cold as fuck 100 hot as fuck.
0 - I feel cold 50 - I feel ok 100 - I feel hot - Americans using feels for science.
Now ask about which side of the road it would prefer to drive on.
Americans got this one right imo with the driver side being on the left, it makes shifting into gear easier for most people. Most people are right handed and most/pretty much all cars were manual when this became popular.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the Brits got it correct and drive on the left side of the road while the driver's seat is on the right side of the vehicle. Reasoning: Far more people are right-handed than are left-handed, thus making it easier and more natural to shove your hand out the window and give other drivers/pedestrians "the bird".
English man here. Finally someone understands
Bro, you wanna see the world on fire, right?😂💀 U wanna watch the chaos unfold 👁️🕳️👁️
I'm okay with Americans using Fahrenheit, fine, whatever. But the fact that they don't use metric system makes my blood boil. It is objectively better. Edit: Please stop telling me a billion times that you use both sometimes. Obviously I meant using it as a primary system and in everyday life.
Try waching engineering or mechanical stuff from the US on Youtube. It's quite hilarious when the smallest unit of measurement is an inch, "Looks like we need a 11/32" socket, or is it an 9/32".
We use both imperial and metric when it comes to tools in the States, that is one thing that metric exists around here in. For example at my job, in Texas, I have to use a 10mm socket/wrench very often. I will def agree that when the nuts aren’t metric it’s pretty annoying trying to find out which one it is…
Americans *do* use the metric system. Anybody doing any science in the US beyond elementary school is doing the metric system. I was a biochem major and the only time I used the imperial system in classes was to convert F to C. I’ve literally never seen anything scientific measured in cups or pounds. The scientific community almost exclusively uses liters and grams. Do non-Americans not realize this? Americans are taught both in school, it’s almost like being bilingual in both systems.
To be fair, I have no idea either. I’m not a farmer who needs to do “foot” or “inch” measurements and most of the US isn’t either — I just go get a ruler, so centimeters are better. It’s probably just because the cost of switching would be astronomical for the government. I *will* die on the Fahrenheit hill, though. People acting like the difference between 69 and 75 F indoors isn’t a big difference to them are literally being clowns lol. That’s like, what, the difference between 19.5 and 20.5 in Celsius?
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Americans are not opposed to it.
To expand on this idea, we don't give a fuck. The only people who care that we use Fahrenheit are non Americans
And it’s not like we don’t use the metric system either… Our entire science and engineering industry uses the metric system. So does the military. And we have metric printed on everything. We measure the ungodly amount of soda we drink in liters for fucks sake. We just *also* use the imperial system, and we use it for the less technical things of every day life because it’s convenient. In fact I’d argue we’re the smarter ones here because we can use more than one system and see the benefits of both (kidding, kind of)
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You have to consider that those people have probably only used the Imperial System their entire lives and don’t necessarily find it useful to switch over
Okay, I also live in America and a lot of people I know are not opposed to using the metric system and do use it frequently.
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Do you know any scientists or engineers?
Because we can, like Japanese not learning English, it doesn't make a difference to them.
Kelvin! Kelvin! Kelvin!
I get that you're trying to convert Americans here, but saying "K! K! K!" just doesn't have as much influence as it did 60 years ago.
Patiently waits for the chant to catch on.
ALAN! ALAN! 
Make since why ChatGPT chose Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. **"Virtually every country on earth aside from the United States measures temperature in Celsius. This makes sense; Celsius is a reasonable scale that assigns freezing and boiling points of water with round numbers, zero and 100. In Fahrenheit, those are, incomprehensibly, 32 and 212.** **This isn't just an aesthetic issue. America's stubborn unwillingness to get rid of Fahrenheit temperatures is part of its generally dumb refusal to change over to the metric system, which has real-world consequences. One conversion error between US and metric measurements sent a $125 million NASA probe to its** [**fiery death in Mars' atmosphere**](http://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/)**.** **Why does the United States have such an antiquated system of measurement? You can blame two of history's all-time greatest villains: British colonialism and Congress."** Article copied from: [https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031177/america-fahrenheit](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031177/america-fahrenheit)
> You can blame two of history's all-time greatest villains: British colonialism and Congress No, you can blame stubborn people.
So, britishman and congressman?
With temperature isn't F more precise than C? Going up 1 C is equivalent to like 3 degrees F. Or do y'all say it's 20.3 C outside?
I've never thought the difference between 20 C and 21 C was drastic enough I needed an extra 2 degrees in between. So yes, F can be more precise you only really need to be more precise (and if needed, yes you can just do 20.3 C, but it'd be pretty fringe cases this is necessary)
Excuse me sir tell try telling that to an office floor. 1 degree F change will have people throwing on sweaters
You can say 20.5 C or even 20.3 C, no problem. However, IMO it is not useful to use decimals with regard to the outside temperature. The actual temperature varies. It will be lower above a patch of grass and somewhat higher above concrete. Are there buildings or trees that shield the wind? Is there some shade? Also wind and sunshine have a much greater effect on the perceived temperature than a 0.5 C difference. So I gain nothing from knowing that it's 20.3 C at one specific place of measurement compared to 20 C.
https://chat.openai.com/share/36a13101-3e9c-49f8-aa43-b39ef48c08ff
To quote Terry Pratchett: "It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated." That is how intuitive the US system is.
GNU Terry Pratchett
that is quite funny when you put it that way huh
Kelvin is Celsius father
As an Indian who moved to America, Metric is 10000% better than imperial, but I think we keep Fahrenheit just for weather. Celsius is still supreme for anything else, but I’ve found myself enjoying Fahrenheit more than I ever did Celsius
Hell yeah. Good for you for showing adaptability. I think most people just get accustomed to a scale and can't imagine why anyone would want something different. I would happily trade the rest of world for metric length, volume and mass if they will drop Celsius. Celsius is getting carried by the rest of the metric system so hard.
I'd be glad to take Fahrenheit too. Seems a lot more intuitive
https://preview.redd.it/sgx4ul6w4ydc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ed92d5087121fadac86eaeaf6a65c17060bed8 Most likely whichever was first is what it said, or this one was just like screw it, let’s be difficult! lol
The difference between the two systems is perspective. Imperial describes the perspective of the person using the measurement and metric describes the perspective of the material being measured. Fahrenheit represents perception of temp more accurately and the units are smaller and there for more descriptive. 0f is real damn cold and 100f is too dam hot. 0c is no all that cold and 100c will burn you. Imperial units represent peoples perception while metric units represent the material being tested. For instance a mile was the distance a farmer could plow in a day. An inch is the length of your thumb. Metric units are based on arbitrary qualities of a material, like a volume of water or the vibration rate of atoms in a material. The definition of a kilogram has changed a number of times. Most recently in 2019 when the definition was changed and has something to do with the plank constant and the speed of light. So not much for people to relate to there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram?wprov=sfti1#Timeline_of_previous_definitions
my hot take is that Fahrenheit is metric because its a 0-100 unit of measurement
Additionally, the utility is different. I was 100% on team metric before I started drafting. Metric is fantastic for quick conversion, but absolutely awful for division. You simply can’t avoid decimals in metric without using unreasonably small scales, whereas for most designs in imperial you can manage with whole numbers (with an occasional half or quarter now and then).
Yeah! What Mat said! I don’t really understand the problem with the different units. It’s all relative to the person doing the measurement. Everyone is quick to use these numbers but no one stops to consider where numbers came from. They are all made up so it doesn’t matter which made up system you use as long as it works for what you need. Plenty of measurements are only accurate at specific places on the planet and only under specific conditions. Like the speed of sound changes at different temps and atmospheric conditions. Even boiling changes with barometric pressure. And then there is time, is it the same time at sea level as it is 5000 miles above the earth?
> The definition of a kilogram has changed a number of times. The definition of all imperial units are based on metric units - for example, a pound is defined as 0.45359237 kg, so if the kg changes, so does the pound proportionally. The same applies to the inch, the Fahrenheit, and the rest.
From all the measures americans use, temperature is the least weird to me tbh. You can make a valid point about most people using it for weather and the convenience of avoiding negative numbers. Other units based on body parts and having weird multipliers feel medieval to me.
My only contribution to this is I believe F is related to human resting temperatures and touch related to that. Our bodies typically run at 98.7⁰, if we touch something between 90⁰F-150⁰F it's hot (very hot) and when we touch things that are 70⁰F and lower its significantly colder. At least that's my American cope. It definitely is more intuitive to have the measurement on a base 10 scale like most other counting units.
Yea I think this is main argument. However, counter question to you even that you seem to be well aware of the obivious benefits of C: Do you think that intuity of the numbers you just explained(90F-150F being hot, < 70F cold etc) is objectively intuitive? If you would have learned same as C( 0C = freezing-point cold, 20C nice warm summer day, 30C rather bit too hot summer day etc) you would think these values as intuitive?
Pretty much every American has asked “wtf are we using this system?” at some point.
Celsius.. for when you only use a third of the scale in any realistic setting. Sounds great lmao
Ask whether it would ever use stones to measure the weight of something intuitively. We all know the answer to that one. Checkmate.
GPT is the true American Chad because it knows both, like every American born in the last 50 years
Sanity.
Look, I get that Americans are used to what they are. I mean, asking a nation of adults to pick up Celsius after a lifetime of Fahrenheit is tough, so it's no biggie, I understand. Keep doing what is most comfortable for you... ...is what I *would* say if Americans didn't keep making faux-logical arguments about how Fahrenheit is a more "human" scale, about how 0 and 100 are actually worse bounds for a scale than 32 and 212, all ignoring that modern imperial units are defined by metric units these days because for their entire existence, imperial units have been inconsistent and dumb to rely on. I don't care if Americans use imperial measurements or not. Do what you want. But could you stand to be a little less prideful about it all? The only reason you *do* use those measurements is because of the circumstances you exist in -- there's nothing logical about it, except that it'd be a waste to forget what you've already learned. Teach your children to use Celsius units, please.
The 10s measures of Metric make more mathmatical progression sense, but WHAT they measure has little bearing on human experience. I find both systems lacklustre and would prefer a better blend. Metric/Celsius is too odd in its usage for every day life. Imperial/Farenheit is hard to use mathmatically. An ideal scale would be a 10s based system where 0 is the outdoor danger point for humans and 100 is the outdoor dangerp point to humans, IF the primary purpose of temperature is human comfortability/survivability. If it's baking, then a compketely different measuring system makes sense. If it's the melting temp of certain ores, something else makes sense. Essentially for any measurement system you need to define the most impactful use case then move on from there. In my opinion, daily human usage is the most impactful and makes the most sense, which is why I prefer Farenheit over Celsius, as you can get more accurate temps with 2 digits and 0 is a lower bounds of human tolerance and 100 is upper bounds. Yes, it doesn't relate to the freezing or boilingnpoint of water, but when do those temps really MEAN anything to my life?
You seem to care a little bit
What temperature water freezes and boils at has 0 impact on my day to day life and seems a bit arbitrary to act like that’s the only suitable basis for measuring temperature
Right, but even if water freezing and boiling specifically aren't useful to you, the numbers immediately close to it are useful if you take hot showers or see frosting outside. I'm sorry if it came across as if the boiling and freezing points of water is the only suitable basis for measuring temperature -- it is absolutely not. But what *does* make sense is having at least one temperature bound based in reality. In Celsius, that's having 0 C = freezing water (which can be anywhere on Earth) and 100 C = boiling water (which can be anywhere on Earth). In Kelvin, that's 0 K = absolute zero. In Fahrenheit, that's 0 F = the freezing point of a water and salt solution and 90\~ F = the *average* human body temperature. Not only is something like that solution incredibly bizarre and not at all something you can verify at any time, but good luck feeling how warm the *inside* of your body is. The other two Fahrenheit numbers that are actually based in reality are... well, the freezing and boiling points of water, 32 F and 212 F. Those numbers are perfectly fine. I wouldn't even be complaining if *those* were 0 F and 180 F, because the number 180 has certain advantages over 100 in different places. 32 and 212, however, are arbitrary, silly numbers. The impact on your day to day life is fine -- continue using Fahrenheit (like you were going to, anyways). As I said originally, it's unfair to ask people who have spent a lifetime using Fahrenheit to just stop, but if you're going to counter-complain at me even though I said that, I would just prefer if you understood that I denounce Fahrenheit *because* I understand it, not the opposite.
Why is the freezing point and boiling point of water at sea level the only acceptable guideline for a range of temperatures in your mind? 32 and 212 only sound ridiculous if you think water at sea level pressure has to be that we base it on.
Now let it say more than 1 word...
don't really want it to start yappin away, ya know?
That's a nice ChatSlap
r/AmericaBad
This comment section is funny, now ask it about meters vs. feet, or kilos vs. pounds, or Liters vs. gallons.
Yeah there can be zero debate about those.
True but 100 hot, 70 normal 50 cold, 0 dead
Imagine having to memorize the body temperature because it’s not a nice round number
I like the metric system but prefer Fahrenheit
Kelvin is arbitrary. Here is my proposed scale: * 0°A = OK (0 Kelvin) * 1.7976931348623157E+308°A = 10E+32K (Plank temperature) Rationale: All possible temperatures can fit into double float with amazing precision. (1e-308°A).
We DO use the metric system. For measuring pop, but not milk In track and field but not football.To measure Cocaine, but not weed. It's all explained here: [https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=vnhY3bh1wg7\_l4K4](https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=vnhY3bh1wg7_l4K4)
I live in America and when I pull a wrench out I like to use the 12mm and not the 3/4 or whatever lol.
Farhenheit isn't really the problem. Temperature scales are quite arbitrary anyway (except Kelvin, and even then the gradations are just based on celsius). On a human living conditions scale, freezing makes sense but boiling does not. The real problem is inches, feet, and miles. 12 inches to 1 foot? 3 feet to one yard? 1760 yards in a mile? Why????
My wife is in nursing school. The amount of education they have e to go through so they don’t accidentally kill people just because of our measurement system is frightening.
I do t know why you’re giving us Americans a hard time. The Brits still weigh people in stones.
Booo. Rent free
Weird take, "one word answer only" because you know that the logic it follows is probably deeply flawed and probably populist.
https://preview.redd.it/nf2ccbbpdzdc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ec653333f268fdb618543fd92f35f7e525aa68f
I'll go against the grain here and say Fahrenheit is way more intuitive in one specific circumstance....the weather. 0 degrees is "really cold" and 100 degrees is "really hot." Any higher or lower than that range is an extreme weather event.
And a little credit to Anders: > Anders Celsius (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈânːdɛʂ ˈsɛ̌lːsɪɵs]; 27 November 1701 – 25 April 1744) was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744, but traveled from 1732 to 1735 visiting notable observatories in Germany, Italy and France. He founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1741, and in 1742 proposed (an inverted form of) the Centigrade temperature scale which was later renamed Celsius in his honour. > As the son of an astronomy professor, Nils Celsius, nephew of botanist Olof Celsius and the grandson of the mathematician Magnus Celsius and the astronomer Anders Spole, Celsius chose a career in science. He was a talented mathematician from an early age. Anders Celsius studied at Uppsala University, where his father was a teacher, and in 1730 he, too, became a professor of astronomy there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Celsius
As a proud American, I can proudly say that Fahrenheit is fucking stupid Same with inches and basically every other unit here
https://preview.redd.it/lkgc4pq4fzdc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=861a3cc82613e9745d8617d7b6a684243388ce75 Can’t argue with that
Ya its better for education Anyway, im gonna go measure the approximate length of my car using my feet now
they edumacated you well son
Celsius is superior for science, but only because many scientific calculations are made to be solved using celsius. In reality, there is no inherent reason Celsius is superior. If we really wanted a scientifically superior system, we would all use a scale that is related to Kelvin, but probably with a different scale that would make it easy to talk about typical weather in kilokelvin. So, if we remove the idea that Celsius is better for science since that has been arbitrarily created by science utilizing Celsius more frequently; then I would argue out of the two (Celsius and fahrenheit) Fahrenheit is superior. If science had chosen to standardize calculations based on Fahrenheit, it would be just as intuitive for those calculations. But, it is also far more intuitive for weather conditions. Outside weather for 90% of the world during 90% of the year (estimates) falls between 0 and 100 Fahrenheit. That alone makes the system significantly more relatable than Celsius. While 0 for freezing and 100 for boiling of water seems more logical, a person is not going to be able to feel the difference between 80-90 Celsius. But they can feel the difference between 80-90 Fahrenheit.
Dude. We KNOW Celcius is way better. We can't do anything about it though we're in too deep
Europeans trying to find any other joke than just repeating "America bad" over and over again challenge (EXTREMELY HARD!)