this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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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.
"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.
That's not either scale being intuitive or unintuitive, that's your familiarity with one over the other.
I got curious so I did some research on the definitions and why everything is this way. It looks like they originally picked the coldest thing they had (brine, possibly inspired by the coldest weather), the freezing point of water, human body temperature, and the boiling point of water. It was supposed to be brine at 0, water freezing at 30, the human body at 90, and water boiling at 240. Fahrenheit then recalibrated his scale slightly to make his math (and thermometer design and production) easier, and also because he noticed water actually boiled at 212 by his newly modified scale.
Looking at it like that work the context of what they had at the time and what they were trying to do, it makes a lot of sense.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History
Never said either one can't be intuitive, just that the scale of farenheit has a precedence outside of it being an arbitrary temperature measurement by being a scale that goes from about 0 - 100.
If you had never used either scale and some one asked: "which is more intuitive, a temperature scale where -10 is really cold and 40 is really hot or one where 0 is really cold and 100 is really hot?" I know which one I would pick because I've done things before like calculate percentages and work in a base 10 system so it makes sense for the scale to be between two orders of magnitude.
But that is what we others are saying: there is no "more intuitive" system, just one you know better and can quicker evaluate how it would feel! So you agree with us.
Everything you said can be said about Celsius scale as well.
There is also a precedence for Celsius more than just an arbitrary number between 0 & 100.
A scale for liquid water, you know, the stuff that is the reason why we call our little spaceship "the blue marble"and why we even have this discussion, because it is the basis of all life on earth, is also not a bad choice for a number between 0-100.
And you made me curious: in what context did you have to calculate percentages of temperature that were not in Kelvin? Because as soon as percentages and temperatures are close to each other in one sentence the only example I can think of are things like reaction kinetic calculations and those are neither in Celsius nor in Fahrenheit.
You should examine your definition of intuitive. Yes, technically nothing is intuitive it's just based on what you know because intuition is also based on what you're used to.
By your logic, if you compare a machine that powers on by pressing a big glowing red button labeled "ON" and one that turns on by you performing the haka in front of a camera while reciting a Shakespeare sonnet backwards you might say that there is no "more intuitive" way to turn on a machine, just one you know better and can perform quicker!
You aren't reading what you're replying to because I said in a previous post that it's easy to get used to Celsius and fahrenheit and there's no difference to either and I also already said that Celsius is better for science because it's based on water.
At this point you're just lying or further proving that you didn't even read the post you tried to respond patronizingly to. I said that the Fahrenheit scale is intuitive because it's a 0-100 scale which is similar to other scales we use all the time and works well for our base 10 counting system being a scale essentially between two powers of 10. Neither of that can be said for Celsius and that's so obvious I think you just didn't read it before replying.
And hell, on top of all this, I think we should all switch to using Celsius! Because as I mentioned it's easy to grasp both scales and using Celsius makes understanding a lot of science easier which I think is the only real argument in this arbitrary choice between the two! But I'm out here explaining the use of Fahrenheit because people here can't grasp my explanation for why people might use it and are acting like they've got the defeater to a post they didn't even read!
But fahrenheit is not a 0-100 scale. You have just arbitrarily picked out 0-100 because that makes your brain more easily understand the non-intuitive system which is fahrenheit.
What you grew up with =/= what is intuitive.
That is not what intuitive means. You're talking about what's "familiar".
Familiarity is subjective. Intuitiveness is objective.
If we want to go that road, intuition is according to Wikipedia:
Since every temperature system needs an explanation, namely the reference points, no system is or even can be intuitive per this definition.
"cold" and "hot" are completely non-descriptive and useless parameters for your supposed "intuitive" system.
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.
The heat index gets over 100°F in much of the southern US every summer
"It has only been 100F once in the last century"
Lmao what?? Go ahead and find me a source for that.
I guarantee you it reaches 100F regularly during summer in many temperate climates, that's not even including warmer regions.
Do you think your little small town is the only place in the universe?
Not when it's near the sea, like most of western Europe. It's the same shit as "why don't you have airco?" Because it was never that hot.
Tell that to the gulf coast, or Mexico, or central America, or Africa, or Australia.
Your experiences are not universal. Just because you've never seen 100F doesn't mean no one else has. That's absurd.
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
Any of the systems is better if you have an intuitive understanding of it. I don't know what 107 F would feel like, just as you don't know what 42°C feels like. But it's not a thing where one is inherently better than the other...
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.
Yes, it does, actually, if you understand how thermal energy works.
So 50% is perfect temperature, no?
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?
Not to mention negative numbers.
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
I'm okay with "mean atmosphere pressure" bc that's what is most likely to occur, whereas pure water seems far less likely to be found in a coastal village. The oddness of the measuring abilities of the devices made at the time is a more damning argument, but less for them back then and more for us now. Still, roughly negative ten to 40 for Celsius vs. roughly zero to one hundred for Fahrenheit, the latter does seem to use more "natural" numbers, even if nothing else about non-metric systems makes any sense.
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.
Is 50°F 50% cold or 50% hot?
Lol, 0F is not 100% cold. That is barely cold unless you live in very warm place like tropic or something
Do you live in northern canada?
Europe
People do live outside of North America. I know that must be news to you, but it is the truth.