It doesn’t “make sense” in a day to day sense. It made sense to researchers first investigating the properties of heat and temperature. 0F is a benchmark temperature that can be reliably produced with a mixture of water, ice and salt. The mixture will moderate itself by melting the ice such that the temperature stays at exactly 0F until the ice all melts. Why 1/180 the interval between freezing and boiling was chosen for the value of one degree, I dunno, but it’s probably similar to the reasons we use 360 degrees.
Celsius is the same, except with just water and ice - you don’t need to get some salt concentration right to reliably reproduce the zero, eliminating that as a variable. “Moderating itself until ice melts” is just something water does, no salt required.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered why they didn’t want to just use a frigorific slush without salt. I’m guessing that the salt version is more robust about maintaining its temperature, or it lasts longer, or something like that.
You can’t have water reliably below freezing without something like salt to keep it liquid? 0F is not serving the same purpose as 0C is. Not making an argument, just pointing out that they’re specifically after a liquid mixture that is below freezing for cooling things down to below freezing in times before refrigeration.
It’s about as equally arbitrary as describing Celsius in terms of 101325 Pa (“standard pressure” boiling point).
Americans are more used to switching units and scales as they relate to the topic at hand. Describing distance between cities in inches is dumb. Using Celsius for the weather is equally unwieldy as the units are not fine grained and despite the headline, we’re not even halfway to the boiling point of water on the Celsius scale. And likewise, if you live in a cold climate, even 0C isn’t super relevant as a floor. Things don’t even get uncomfortable until -10C anyway.
Speaking of Pascals, I feel “conversational” in Celsius and it kinda works but Pascals are even more irrelevant to daily tasks. Things don’t even get interesting until you get to 200 kPa and jumps of less than 100kPa aren’t very noteworthy. It’s like currency after massive inflation.
Because we have used it all our lives, that’s really it. We know water freezes at 32f and our body temp is around 98.6. The weather channel says it’s 70,80,90 every day and we know what that feels like. In a day to day contact we don’t have to covert to Kelvin or anything so the standard Fahrenheit scale works fine
I have been and lived in both the FREEDOM land and the rest of the world for a significant period of time 10y+, the “it has more marks on the thermometer” isn’t really a good argument, turns out there is no “71° time for a slightly warmer jacket” in reality.
American temperatures really never do stop sounding ridiculous.
The Fahrenheit scale actually makes a lot of sense, unlike some other us units
Why don’t we just ditch both and use Kelvin instead
Nah let’s combine Freedom and Kelvin and use Rankine for even further confusion.
Say what?
Fahrenheit, but measured instead from absolute zero. Maximum confusion, but also maximum Freedom™ 🇺🇲 🦅 🇺🇲
How does it make sense?
It doesn’t “make sense” in a day to day sense. It made sense to researchers first investigating the properties of heat and temperature. 0F is a benchmark temperature that can be reliably produced with a mixture of water, ice and salt. The mixture will moderate itself by melting the ice such that the temperature stays at exactly 0F until the ice all melts. Why 1/180 the interval between freezing and boiling was chosen for the value of one degree, I dunno, but it’s probably similar to the reasons we use 360 degrees.
Celsius is the same, except with just water and ice - you don’t need to get some salt concentration right to reliably reproduce the zero, eliminating that as a variable. “Moderating itself until ice melts” is just something water does, no salt required.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered why they didn’t want to just use a frigorific slush without salt. I’m guessing that the salt version is more robust about maintaining its temperature, or it lasts longer, or something like that.
You can’t have water reliably below freezing without something like salt to keep it liquid? 0F is not serving the same purpose as 0C is. Not making an argument, just pointing out that they’re specifically after a liquid mixture that is below freezing for cooling things down to below freezing in times before refrigeration.
It’s about as equally arbitrary as describing Celsius in terms of 101325 Pa (“standard pressure” boiling point).
Americans are more used to switching units and scales as they relate to the topic at hand. Describing distance between cities in inches is dumb. Using Celsius for the weather is equally unwieldy as the units are not fine grained and despite the headline, we’re not even halfway to the boiling point of water on the Celsius scale. And likewise, if you live in a cold climate, even 0C isn’t super relevant as a floor. Things don’t even get uncomfortable until -10C anyway.
Speaking of Pascals, I feel “conversational” in Celsius and it kinda works but Pascals are even more irrelevant to daily tasks. Things don’t even get interesting until you get to 200 kPa and jumps of less than 100kPa aren’t very noteworthy. It’s like currency after massive inflation.
Because we have used it all our lives, that’s really it. We know water freezes at 32f and our body temp is around 98.6. The weather channel says it’s 70,80,90 every day and we know what that feels like. In a day to day contact we don’t have to covert to Kelvin or anything so the standard Fahrenheit scale works fine
You can do that with every unit though. How does that make any more sense than inches or ounces?
Meters and grams are a decimal system which makes more sense than non decimal systems.
The difference in temperature units is just the somewhat arbitrary starting points. And there are valid arguments for both.
There are more degrees of lived temperatures, and the difference between 68 and 73 is whether or not you need a jacket.
Inches and ounces are different forms of measurement so I’m not quite sure of the comparison.
I have been and lived in both the FREEDOM land and the rest of the world for a significant period of time 10y+, the “it has more marks on the thermometer” isn’t really a good argument, turns out there is no “71° time for a slightly warmer jacket” in reality.
As an ohioan I strongly disagree with this statement
as a Floridian; your crazy is crazier, that makes your argument invalid, deal with it.