Fahrenheit Is A Better Temperature Scale Than Celsius

Fahrenheit, while good in concept, became way too mired down in the absurd. And talk about mindless button mashing...who wants to play Simon on PC anyways?
 
I have a lot of fun asking people who use the Fahrenheit scale to tell me how it is defined, or what exactly does "zero" on the scale mean etc. They simply have no idea. They also have no idea that even the inventor of the scale did not intend it for general use - it was just a very rough scale for him to use. In general the liked article is just a big flamebait, the only reason for using Fahrenheit is that you are used to it. If you want to go to the "precision" route then you would focus on other aspects of every day life where there is a problem. For example: inches. Two people that are 5' 7" can be VISIBLY different in height, an inch is simply too big. Let's not go into measuring, with inches, things that are just a few cm across. To make matters worse, you don't use decimals - "hmm, this is about 2 and 3/8 of an inch". Sub-one Celsius temp differences are MUCH harder to tell than sub-one inch differences...
 
Same for healthcare workplaces, body statistics like height and weight are actually recorded in metric units, they just tell it to you in imperial units.

This isn't true. I worked in healthcare for 10 years. They measure in feet, inches, pounds, ounces (for babies). All electronic records have a place for you to put in weight, it's in pounds, and height, which is in feet-inches.
 
F stands for Full-retard. Bass ackwards systems we have here in the US.

I dunno. When fahrenheit is used for weather zero degrees is really fucking cold and one hundred degrees is really fucking hot. Anything above or below is just ridiculous. It's basically a scale of zero to one hundred. Makes sense to me.
 
lol Americans are the only ones left who have such a hard time with groups of 10
 
Who cares? Use what you're used to and if you have to convert, there's an app for everything!
 
Kelvin wins!
(seen in original article's comments):
vo7siirieakplzzoinxp.jpg

:D:D:D

lol
 
I'm in the why do some of you care so damn much camp? Seriously, who cares.

Generally I prefer Celsius for most everything except weather. For weather or thermostat control I find Fahrenheit works better. It could be because it is just more familiar to be, who knows idgaf. I like both just fine for different reasons. I swear some of you act like one of them kicked your dog or something. You aren't coming off as more intelligent swearing one over the other, just as a prick.
 
I prefer the accuracy of F for temperature,metric for everything else.As advanced as we are, we could cheaply build actual time devices and abandon such clumsy one hour substitutes as DST.Actual time for creatures on earth follows the sun.
 
Why do people keep saying this?

People want whole number precision. One degree of Kelvin equals one degree of Celcius the only difference is the 273.15 degree offset between absolute zero and the freezing point of water. The whole number precision is the exact same as Celcius, your argument is completely wrong and invalid. Good day sir! :D

You're not wrong, but I was just simply using the silly article's argument against itself to show a contradiction. Apparently they think rocket launches, fusion research and Hadron colliders etc are projects managed using fractionless integer values or something, no idea.
 
I'm in the why do some of you care so damn much camp? Seriously, who cares.

Generally I prefer Celsius for most everything except weather. For weather or thermostat control I find Fahrenheit works better. It could be because it is just more familiar to be, who knows idgaf. I like both just fine for different reasons. I swear some of you act like one of them kicked your dog or something. You aren't coming off as more intelligent swearing one over the other, just as a prick.
Because no engineer (or really even regular schmuck) has the luxury of ONLY learning one system, as 99% of the world uses the metric system so we have to learn it one way or another.

Furthermore, when it comes to tooling it means you don't just have to have one set of tools but double the cost with two sets. And its a double-PITA when you have some motorcycles that use some metric and some english bolts, so you can't just walk up and guess the size as it might not even be a metric bolt.

And as was pointed out its a huge PITA to work even within say distance (how many inches are in a yard... or a mile?), yet alone try to work with multiple units of measure like what dimensions is a quart in inches?
 
I dunno. When fahrenheit is used for weather zero degrees is really fucking cold and one hundred degrees is really fucking hot. Anything above or below is just ridiculous. It's basically a scale of zero to one hundred. Makes sense to me.
Yes, but the scale is still completely arbitrary and not based on any natural phenominon.

When its 0o C out, or close to it, I know there may be ice on the road. For F I only know to worry when its 32o F because I have it memorized. Likewise, you'll know that 37o C is hot as hell just from experience, and you can figure out how cold is cold based on how much above or below freezing it is.
 
Don't use a calculator or look it up.
How many yards are in 1.5 miles?
How many meters are in 1.5 kilometers?
Seeing as how we memorized that 1 mile = 1,760 yards in elementary school here in the US (at least I did in the '80s...)

1.5 miles = 2,640 yards
1,5 km = 1.500 metres

The imperial calculation took a second more effort for the math in my head. Oh noes, it's such an inferior unit of measurement :rolleyes:.

Why do people keep saying this?

People want whole number precision. One degree of Kelvin equals one degree of Celcius the only difference is the 273.15 degree offset between absolute zero and the freezing point of water. The whole number precision is the exact same as Celcius, your argument is completely wrong and invalid. Good day sir! :D
I was scratching my head at this the whole time, too ;).
 
I prefer C for everything, including those moments during breakfast cereal binges when I can't reach for the remote because the milk will make things too soggy if I stop to get up for it.
 
This article is based on the assumption that people are so stupid they can't interpret temperatures with decimal places in them. The same argument can also be made that both scales are terrible and we need to switch to one that's 1000x more precise. It's just a silly argument.
 
I've always argued this. Fahrenheit is a finer scale of temperature while Celsius is really not. Sure, you can gradate Celsius, but then you lose the purpose of what the temperature feels like. Sure it's easy to say 0 degrees is freezing and 100 degrees is boiling, but what is in between is what people lose the sense of coherency to.
 
No, because real thermostats do 0.5 increments of C, which is better than whole increments of F.
 
Celsius was an interpretive improvement over Fahrenheit, and now Kelvin is the best choice.

The real strength behind Celsius is not covered by this article, it's the 0-100 frame of reference attached to water's shift in state under our commonly experienced atmospheric pressure.
In this human relative state of understanding Celsius is better.


So, if you're uneducated, slow, or looking for convenience, use Celsius, otherwise, Kelvin.
 
Yes, but the scale is still completely arbitrary and not based on any natural phenominon.

When its 0o C out, or close to it, I know there may be ice on the road. For F I only know to worry when its 32o F because I have it memorized. Likewise, you'll know that 37o C is hot as hell just from experience, and you can figure out how cold is cold based on how much above or below freezing it is.

Your argument about having to memorize 32F vs 0C applies to your 37C too. It's easier to know that its getting pretty hot the closer you approach 100F.

In the end F and C really don't make much of a difference. It's a matter of what you are used to. Unlike the rest of the metric system, there is no easy math benefit to it. 1000 meters = 1 kilometer. That's easy. But there is no need to do that kind of conversion with temperature. No one calls 3000F (1648.8C) 1.6 KC.

C is just an easier way to remember the freezing and boiling points of water. That said, water technically boils at 99.97C at sea level and 71C at 29,000 feet.
 
F stands for Full-retard. Bass ackwards systems we have here in the US.

When will the rest of the world get on board and recognize that America clearly does everything better? That's the real question.

AMERICA! F@!# YEAH!
 
I'm sorry, but a positive number like 5F should NOT feel that cold...

Metric FTW!
 
Canadian here. Grew up in the 70s and 80s. I'm comfortable with both systems though have preferences for one or the other in certain cases. I suspect the kids today are practically all metric.

Human height and weight: Imperial
Other weight: depends on the item though preference for Metric generally
Weather: Metric
Distance: Metric
Speed: Metric
Measuring: Metric (comfortable with Imperial but prefer decimals over factions)
Cooking: Imperial
Homebrewing: Imperial
- recipes are written out Imperial but weights converted to metric and measured out metrically
- temperature monitoring of mash and wort is Imperial

Conversion between units in Metric is obviously easier than Imperial and doesn't require the memorization. The one thing that annoys me travelling down to the USA is reading road signs in miles and mph. "Oh it's just x miles away... Oh wait 1.6km per mile... Damn!" The mph always seems slow when reading.
 
Fahrenheit gives you almost double—1.8x—the precision* of Celsius without having to delve into decimals, allowing you to better relate to the air temperature. Again, we're sensitive to small shifts in temperature, so Fahrenheit allows us to discern between two readings more easily than Saint Celsius ever could.
that's true... but then again, i doubt any of us could differentiate between 21C and 21.5C...
 
"without having to delve into decimals"

Seriously? That's his fine line of perfection? Try telling a machinist or scientists or ANYBODY they are no longer allowed to use decimals, all units are to be rounded to the nearest whole number :rolleyes:
 
"without having to delve into decimals"

Seriously? That's his fine line of perfection? Try telling a machinist or scientists or ANYBODY they are no longer allowed to use decimals, all units are to be rounded to the nearest whole number :rolleyes:

Well, I am 99.947% certain that the person that wrote that article was full of fecal matter ... no decimals was about the worst argument he could come up with :cool:
 
Because no engineer (or really even regular schmuck) has the luxury of ONLY learning one system, as 99% of the world uses the metric system so we have to learn it one way or another.

Furthermore, when it comes to tooling it means you don't just have to have one set of tools but double the cost with two sets. And its a double-PITA when you have some motorcycles that use some metric and some english bolts, so you can't just walk up and guess the size as it might not even be a metric bolt.

And as was pointed out its a huge PITA to work even within say distance (how many inches are in a yard... or a mile?), yet alone try to work with multiple units of measure like what dimensions is a quart in inches?

That still doesn't address why people act like one or the other kicked their damn dog. Sure some career fields it doubles the number of tools they require. However I would wager the vast majority here aren't coming from the problem of having to buy doubles of expensive toolsets (as an aside if your entire toolset cost you less then $5k then honestly you have no idea what an expensive toolset is). As I said, I use and like both systems just fine. I own standard and metric toolsets, hell I would wager I have more invested in tools then the average here due to my background. That still doesn't make me hate one or the other. I have my preferences depending on the situation and the rest doesn't bother me.

Humans are on average quite smart when it comes to conversions, at least when they decide it is important to them. Sorry I don't buy the huge PITA argument when it comes to them. Sure it might be a pain for someone to do conversions of a standard they don't use often, but if it is something you do regularly it isn't even remotely hard. I'll use me as an example here. I use metric and standard hand tools regularly. I can convert between mm and in without thinking about it most of the time. I can also look at just about any size bolt, nut or especially allen head which is the majority of what I use and be within a size or two at a glance. Even if I'm unsure if it is standard or metric it is 3-4 things in my hand at max guessing. Now I use cooking measurements far less frequently, as such those require a bit more thought, or a glance at a conversion chart. But a huge PITA? Nah not by a long shot.
 
That still doesn't address why people act like one or the other kicked their damn dog. Sure some career fields it doubles the number of tools they require. However I would wager the vast majority here aren't coming from the problem of having to buy doubles of expensive toolsets (as an aside if your entire toolset cost you less then $5k then honestly you have no idea what an expensive toolset is). As I said, I use and like both systems just fine. I own standard and metric toolsets, hell I would wager I have more invested in tools then the average here due to my background. That still doesn't make me hate one or the other. I have my preferences depending on the situation and the rest doesn't bother me.

Humans are on average quite smart when it comes to conversions, at least when they decide it is important to them. Sorry I don't buy the huge PITA argument when it comes to them. Sure it might be a pain for someone to do conversions of a standard they don't use often, but if it is something you do regularly it isn't even remotely hard. I'll use me as an example here. I use metric and standard hand tools regularly. I can convert between mm and in without thinking about it most of the time. I can also look at just about any size bolt, nut or especially allen head which is the majority of what I use and be within a size or two at a glance. Even if I'm unsure if it is standard or metric it is 3-4 things in my hand at max guessing. Now I use cooking measurements far less frequently, as such those require a bit more thought, or a glance at a conversion chart. But a huge PITA? Nah not by a long shot.

Does this count?
http://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

The $125 million satellite was supposed to be the first weather observer on another world. But as it approached the red planet to slip into a stable orbit Sept. 23, the orbiter vanished. Scientists realized quickly it was gone for good.
...
Propulsion engineers, like those at Lockheed Martin who built the craft, typically express force in pounds, but it was standard practice to convert to newtons for space missions. One pound of force is about 4.45 newtons. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab assumed the conversion had been made, and didn’t check.

The cost of the mission was $327.6 million total for the orbiter and lander, $193.1 million for spacecraft development, $91.7 million for launching it, and $42.8 million for mission operations.

Taxpayer money and years of hard work down the drain because someone messed up a unit conversion.
 
When will the rest of the world get on board and recognize that America clearly does everything better? That's the real question.

AMERICA! F@!# YEAH!

I'm pretty sure we are the only country to lose a $700 Million space probe because someone programmed imperial units and not the SI units that were expected.
 
Does this count?
http://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter





Taxpayer money and years of hard work down the drain because someone messed up a unit conversion.

So because someone makes a mistake that makes the system the problem and not the person? Wow that is really taking the pass the blame mindset to a whole new level. By that standard we may as well just do away with everything that someone makes a mistake in because obviously the system is at fault. Convict someone innocent of murder because someone made a mistake? Do away with the entire prison system! :rolleyes: How many lives and millions of dollars have been lost in space programs across the planet where someone made a mistake that had nothing to do with conversions? I would dare say Quite a bit more then what that mars mission cost...Challenger anyone?

Honestly they could do away with standard measurements tomorrow and I really wouldn't give two shits. Sure I like it better for certain applications, but i doubt I would even notice the change after a short period of not using one at all. My entire point is the arguments some are using are just inane.
 
So because someone makes a mistake that makes the system the problem and not the person? Wow that is really taking the pass the blame mindset to a whole new level. By that standard we may as well just do away with everything that someone makes a mistake in because obviously the system is at fault. Convict someone innocent of murder because someone made a mistake? Do away with the entire prison system! :rolleyes: How many lives and millions of dollars have been lost in space programs across the planet where someone made a mistake that had nothing to do with conversions? I would dare say Quite a bit more then what that mars mission cost...Challenger anyone?

Honestly they could do away with standard measurements tomorrow and I really wouldn't give two shits. Sure I like it better for certain applications, but i doubt I would even notice the change after a short period of not using one at all. My entire point is the arguments some are using are just inane.

Do you understand how the metric system works? It increases by 10's, something almost everyone can calculate in a few seconds compared to whatever the Imperial system decides (12 for inches per foot, 3 for feet per yard, etc.). It may have something to do with efficiency, that's why people like the metric system. It's consistent and makes for an efficient way of calculating stuff. Come up with a simpler measurement system and then come back.
 
Go engineer anything in both measurement systems and then get back to me to which one had the less time consuming arithmetic/conversions to consider.
 
Do you understand how the metric system works? It increases by 10's, something almost everyone can calculate in a few seconds compared to whatever the Imperial system decides (12 for inches per foot, 3 for feet per yard, etc.). It may have something to do with efficiency, that's why people like the metric system. It's consistent and makes for an efficient way of calculating stuff. Come up with a simpler measurement system and then come back.

Did you read my two posts? No? then do so and come back with a reply that isn't stupid.
 
So because someone makes a mistake that makes the system the problem and not the person? Wow that is really taking the pass the blame mindset to a whole new level. By that standard we may as well just do away with everything that someone makes a mistake in because obviously the system is at fault. Convict someone innocent of murder because someone made a mistake? Do away with the entire prison system! :rolleyes: How many lives and millions of dollars have been lost in space programs across the planet where someone made a mistake that had nothing to do with conversions? I would dare say Quite a bit more then what that mars mission cost...Challenger anyone?

Honestly they could do away with standard measurements tomorrow and I really wouldn't give two shits. Sure I like it better for certain applications, but i doubt I would even notice the change after a short period of not using one at all. My entire point is the arguments some are using are just inane.

That's how it works in engineering, you look for efficiency gains and reduce margins of error. It saves time and resources, and reduces mistakes such as the above from happening. Using something because of tradition is ok for non-scientific matters, but when real work needs done then you use the best tools for the job, and for science/industrial applications it's a no brainer for a respectable establishment in a competitive environment.

My argument is it's probably not a big deal except when the task at hand is complex and important. We might as well teach our kids proper science in case they end up having to compete with others on the world stage in the future imho.
 
Back
Top