this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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[โ€“] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why write 36.111 C when you could write 97 F?

Why write 96.8 F when you could write 36 C? Do you honestly believe that we're thinking about temperatures in Fahrenheit and then just converting to Celsius when we write them down?

[โ€“] LukeMedia@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In fairness to Fahrenheit, you can round it to a whole number with a lesser difference in feel. That's more for feel though, for measurements of temp in cooking or chemistry, Celsius is useful due to boiling point.

[โ€“] theragu40@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed, though if you are measuring it via instrument then what difference does it make how "round" the number is?

[โ€“] LukeMedia@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was more thinking of when you're telling your friend what the temperature is outside, or scenarios similar to that. It's not useful in most other applications.

[โ€“] PixelOfLife@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

What difference does it make if the temperature is 79 or 80 F? That's a difference of about half a Celsius, and as a Celsius user, I can tell you that I don't plan my daily life based on a half a degree difference, or even a one degree difference; 5 degree precision is almost always enough.

Do you honestly believe that we're thinking about temperatures in Fahrenheit and then just converting to Celsius when we write them down?

Why on earth would I think that? I made the comparison to other units of measurement to demonstrate why smaller units are useful in some cases. There are cases where its not useful, but there are also many cases where the advantages of Celsius aren't useful. Neither is inherently better, the correct one to use is the one you know better or the one that fits the use case better.