this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
1311 points (100.0% liked)
Science Memes
14139 readers
3046 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Fahrenheit is best for ambient temperatures. 0 F is what humans feel is a very cold day, and 100 F is what humans feel is a very hot day.
Celsius is best for literally everything else, but for humans feeling of ambient temperature Fahrenheit is best
only if you grow up with fahrenheit.
100F was defined as the human body temperature (The guy they used had a cold or something so it's off by a degree and a half.)
That's useful for perception of heat. 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.
This is more intuitive than 36.5C.
what Fahrenheit used for his endpoints was 1) the melting point of a brine mixture that he didn't write down the ratio of, and 2) his wife's armpit.
those "bulb" things is something i only ever hear of from americans. it's never used here.
and I fail to see how two numbers are somehow differently intuitive. they are just numbers. also, 36.5 is too low. it's pretty much 37.0 now, because average body temp has interestingly enough shifted since he took those measurements.
What does Europe use for apparent temperature measurement then? Just humidity and not evaporation?
temperature, wind speed and direction, and humidity are given separately. regular news report style forecasts don't give humidity at all.
So you're saying that 0 and 100 aren't intuitively obvious? I find that really strange when it's doing a better job keeping to base 10 than the metric system in this particular use case.
For Celsius, 0 is freezing cold and 100 is boiling hot - that's intuitive too.
I have literally never felt 0°F in my life and couldn't tell you how cold it is, just that it's very cold. I believe everyone has a rough understanding how 0°C and 100°C feel though.
It is intuitive, and that's fine. Having the same intuition around human comfort zones is also fine. One measurement system can't really cover everything.
People tend not to want to live in places where it's routinely under 0F or over 100F. You'll tolerate it, but you won't like it. It's a very natural range of human comfort.
the numbers may be, but if you asked me to tell you what they feel like i would have to convert them to celsius first. where i live temperatures are generally between -30 and +30, and i could tell you in an instant what I would wear for a given temperature in that range. 50F though? no clue. since it's right between 0 and 100 i guess it would be just right, temperature wise, so t-shirt and long pants?
Can you remember that at temperatures near 0F and 100F, you need to take special precautions when going outside? The rest is a matter of getting used to what the numbers mean, but those are very intuitive danger points.
-18 is such an arbitrary place for "special precautions". at 0, I know to start driving more carefully since the roads ice up. at -15, i know to wear long johns. at +15, i know to start using a thinner jacket. at -30, i know to use a thick hat and wax on my cheeks to prevent the blood vessels from rupturing. at +30, I know to use a large hat and sun cream on my cheeks to prevent them from burning.
see, that's what i'm saying. having a scale that starts at "it really doesn't matter" makes it hard to use for everyday things.
When it comes to a single number on a scale, whatever you grew up with will be more "obvious". 100F doesn't give me any more information than 38C does. The whole "base 10" thing only matters if you are actually doing some math to that number.
Base 10 makes it much easier to remember.
When was the last time you did math related to temperature?
For day to day use, it's just a single number, no one is doing any conversions, etc, with the number. That was my point. There's nothing to remember. Do you forget what 72F feels like? Do you have to scale it in your head?
100F definitely gives more insight as to the temperature. It's a 100/100. That's as hot as a person can really tolerate. If you understand percentages or how to rate things on a scale of 1-10, you understand fahrenheit.
There's large chunks of the world proving that false every day. For the geographically impared, the simple fact that Phoenix has existed for longer than air conditioning, proves that statement false.
And 0F as the low point is equally as useless.
That's why I used the qualifier "really" and in another comment I mentioned "in average temperate climates" If you were more familiar with statistics you would understand how means and outliers work. Just like someone can score a movie an 11/10 or a -1/10, it is possible for the weather to exceed 100F or drop below 0F. Just not typical.
And while I didn't say it specifically, 0F is similarly the average lowest temperature a person can tolerate/expect before beginning to experience problems.
Hypothermia can be a problem in temperatures as high as 50F. 0F is a meaningless number, outside of purely subjective "it's cold" uses.
"Can be" Yeah if you're submerged in 50F water you will succumb to hypothermia due to the specific heat of water.
But we're not discussing swimming pool temperatures, we're discussing air temperatures. You are not actively in danger of imminent hypothermia at 50F air temp like you are at 0F air temp.
But of course you know that already. You're not here arguing in good faith, you just want to sling shit at people that have a better understanding of the world than you. If you want to use Celsius for everything, go ahead. No one cares. But the intelligent world will keep using both.
Lol
No, they're not. I couldn't tell what those numbers mean even if you asked, but I can tell what 0°C outside feels, and what 100°C sauna feels. I can also tell that 21°C is a nice ambient temperature for chilling, and 15-20°C is ideal for most outdoor sports.
Yeah sure those are not necessarily nice round numbers, but I've used the scale all my life so it's intuitive to me, same as the Fahrentrash is intuitive to you
No, that's not how this works.
You understand the concept of a scale. If I asked you to rate something on a scale of 1-10, you know what i mean. It has nothing to do with intuitiveness. If I asked you to rate something on a scale of 7-23, you'd know what I mean, even though the numbers are different than what you're used to.
So if I said it was 100F outside, you'd know that's very uncomfortably hot, as hot as a normal person can really tolerate, because you'd recognize it as the high end of the scale.
Everyone can understand fahrenheit, some people just try really hard not to.
If you'd say it is 100F outside, I wouldn't know what you mean because I have no concept of Fahrenheit. Is 100F actually hot? What is that in Celsius? Do you mean hot as in "better to wear light clothes" or "Do not set a foot outside or you will melt"?
What does it mean "as hot as a normal person can really tolerate"? What about a abnormal person?
It gives nothing of information. Just a rough indication of what it might be. Which isn't useful at all.
You really don't understand what reference points are. The scale is useless without reference points, and I'm not accustomed to them while I have very clear ones for Celsius.
Sure I can understand that 100F feels very hot, but if I was outside in that temperature I couldn't tell you an estimate in Fahrenheit how hot it feels
They aren't. And fahrenheit is not a 0-100 scale. It is just the scale you picked out of it in order to make some kind of sense out of the non-intuitive system which it is.
Um. No.
If I said a movie was a 7/10, you would understand what that means because it's a scale. You don't have to "grow up" using a 0-10 scale to understand it.
Like if I asked you to rate something on a scale of 4-17, you'd understand what I mean. The numbers are different but the concept of a scale remains the same.
if I knew that you are a european and you told me a movie was 5/10, i would assume it was average. if i knew you were American, i would assume it was dogshit.
Americans have a weird relationship with numbers.
also, as mentioned in another post: if 0 is too cold and 100 is too hot, surely 50 would be a pleasant temperature?
Dear god, is Fahrenheit the reason behind meaningless movie ratings? Another reason to hate it…
Really not. Basically, you just need to peg feelings to a number, just like you are doing.
Celsius:
below -20 = deadly even with good gear, you can't spend long here
-15 = very dangerous / deadly
-10 = starting to get dangerous
-5 = starting to get uncomfortable
0 = very cold
5 = cold
10 = a little cold
15 = cool
20 = nice
25 = warm
30 = hot
35 = starting to get uncomfortable
40 = starting to get dangerous
45 = very dangerous / deadly
50+ = deadly even with good gear, you can't spend long here
It doesn't, because celsius users doesn't think about fahrenheit at all.