this post was submitted on 06 May 2025

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What the fuck is a Fahrenheit? (feddit.org)

submitted 5 days ago by genfood@feddit.org to c/yurop@lemm.ee

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[+] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat -58 points 5 days ago (81 children)

Fahrenheit is better.

0 is real cold, 100 is real hot. How much sense does that make? Lots.

What the fuck is Celsius? Maybe if you are doing chemistry it is better. 0 is kind of cold but not really, 40 is real hot, 80 is unsued in practice, 100 is when water boils. Great, that'll come in real handy the next time I need to find out whether it is boiling-water temperature or not outside. How much sense does that make? 0. Which is the right number to use for roughly the bottom of the scale.

For everything else, the US's medieval "how many hogsheads in a farthing" units are far inferior, I will 100% agree. Fahrenheit is better though. If you disagree then why not just use Kelvin, that's even more chemically accurate and even less related to human relevant temperatures which is the goal I guess.

[–] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I've used both metric and imperial and F is fine if all you are doing is choosing what clothes to wear. For anything to do with science or engineering, C just makes more sense. Internally consistent unit systems are a no brained. Fuck having to multiply by some arbitrary number just because your temperature units don't relate to your volume units (or whatever)

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 5 days ago

Yeah true that

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee -3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Thank you for injecting some sense into this thread. I love the Metric system, but Fahrenheit is so much better when weather is involved.

I like the current hybrid system America has, where weather is measured in °F, and science and computing uses °C & Kelvin. Makes the most logical sense. Just wish Metric was used for other things that make more sense to use it for, like cooking/baking and distance.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat -3 points 5 days ago

I don't know if people are old enough to remember this. Back in the 70s, they really made a push in the US to convert the road signs to metric. From time to time they have tried, and people have always resisted. Anyway, in the 70s they studied it, made a commission (which in the end Ronald Reagan destroyed as he did so many other things), and tried again. They started putting sneaky little kilometer signs underneath the mph and "mile 5" and whatever markers, just to get people used to the idea. (They are still around, in some places.)

Nope. People could see where it was going. America as does some other countries has a proud tradition of shooting holes in road signs with guns. I don't know why people do this, but when the metric signs came along they shot the shit out of them. I don't know that the unsustainability of keeping them installed when people kept shooting them into semi-oblivion was part of what made them abandon the idea, but it certainly couldn't have been good for the morale of the people working on it, and probably it made a difference.

That is all the good and all the bad of America rolled up into one. The people had spoken. Keep your god damned kilometers. We're not changing the date for Thanksgiving. It's not the Gulf of America. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. And so on. Hopefully.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org -1 points 5 days ago (8 children)

The thing about Fahrenheit being more intuitive is it will just depend on what scale you're used to. If anything having the scale relate to water makes more sense for cooking but again since nothing is being converted it doesn't really matter. If you want an actually superior American unit of measurment imo look no further than cups. Using volume over weight has made following recipes much easier for me.

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[+] blitzen@lemmy.ca -8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (10 children)

Despite the downvotes, you are absolutely correct.

Let’s all start out agreeing that units of measurement (distance, length, weight, etc.) in the US is absolutely idiotic. I will back up every European who says this, 100%. Miles, inches, pounds, pints, quarts, fractions; it’s a mess. Objectively, if I remove all my cultural biases (I’m American) metric is just better. A lot better. No question.

And when we are talking about scientific pursuit, and probably cooking too, Celsius is a great unit of measure.

But ambient temperature, the temperature of the environment, Fahrenheit is better. It covers the range of human experience and neatly ties it to a 1-100 scale. It’s a “how hot is it” scale. Celsius’ -18 – 38 degrees just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when describing the temperatures you will experience during 99% of your time on earth. Further, Celsius’ units are slightly too big to useful, I’ve seen weather reports in Europe say the expected temperature to a 10th of a degree, while Fahrenheit is granular enough not to need to.

Metrics base ten is great when it comes to distance and weight. And it accurately allows for relative comparison (ten meters is twice that of five.) But ambient temperature does not work like that; 20 degrees is not twice that of 10, and the base 10 units doesn’t effectively exist for temperature.

To all those who will downvote me, I get it. You’re very used to being on the objectively right side of sanity re: units of measurement and rightfully so. But I ask you to set aside your cultural bias and muscle memory for a moment and objectively think about what range of measurement makes more sense for ambient temperature and ambient temperature only.

Put another way, with Celsius, one has to be accustomed to the possible range of values. With Fahrenheit, most people understand 1-100 intuitively.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat -5 points 5 days ago

Preach

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[–] Snowwomen@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I like in a Celsius country but have switched all my digital thermometers to F for exactly this reason. It's just more intuitive, and I happen to like it at 70F, so below that convenient number is cool, and above it is warm.

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