[graemep]

I agree its having the mental map that matters but my intention was to disagree with the parent comment's claim that Fahrenheit is more appropriate to the "human scale of things".

its a small advantage, but I think zero indicating when things might freeze is a more useful than "0 degrees lines up with really darned cold"

[SideburnsOfDoom]

To me, below zero Centigrade lines up with "really darned cold". It's all subjective.

> zero indicating when things might freeze is useful

Of course it is, parent is being silly.

Picking some other non-zero random number for freezing just seems absurd to me. But that's because Centigrade is what I am familiar with.

Say pick freezing = 12, or 47?. If those numbers for freezing seem absurd to you, then consider that the only advantage that "32" has for you is that you're familiar with it. People will find reasons to defend whichever one they grew up with.

[sarchertech]

The argument is that a scale that generally falls between 0-100 is inherently slightly more convenient than that that generally falls between -17 and 37.

Obviously both can be adapted to. But if you took a group of aliens and asked them to come up with a temperature scale that was only used to convey how cold or warm the temperature felt to humans, they would almost certainly use human body temperature in their design process not the freezing and boiling points of water.

This isn’t to say that Celsius isn’t perfectly fine and superior in most ways. I’m not insulting anyone or attempting to participate in some kind of culture war.

Celsius is obviously a better scale for determining when water freezes. But I’ve never found myself paying attention to that. Mostly because any problems that I’d worry about related to the water freezing happen well below freezing.

But if you find yourself unable to agree that one system has some inherent advantages over another, even if they don’t outweigh the disadvantages, you should step back and think a little more objectively.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> if you took a group of aliens and asked them to come up with a temperature scale that was only used to convey how cold or warm the temperature felt to humans, they would almost certainly use human body temperature in their design process not the freezing and boiling points of water.

This is completely nonsensical. I draw the exact opposite conclusion regarding what some "logical" aliens from planet Vulcan would choose.

> generally falls between -17 and 37.

What are you even talking about? -17 is a complete irrelevance to me, it does not happen, and I often deal with water or objects over 37c. Those are parochial numbers.

Your conclusion is predicated on finding reasons to defend what you're familiar with. There is no objectivity to it. Nor can there be.

[sarchertech]

When defining a scale from scratch only for the purpose of defining how the temperature feels it a human, you don’t think human body temperature would factor in?

> What are you even talking about? -17 is a complete irrelevance to me, it does not happen,

It lines up with 0F, which in most of the US is about as cold as it gets. You could be more specific and lick the weight 95% percentile coldest yearly low and get -19 or -16 or something. The specific number is irrelevant. The point is that a scale where the daily values generally fall between 0 and 100 is something that most people would admit is a point in that scale’s favor.

That doesn’t mean that Fahrenheit is better than Celsius. It does mean that there are objective advantages to it for some purposes.

If you can’t sit down and analyze Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin and make a list of pros and cons for each, you’re just being stubborn.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> It lines up with 0F, which in most of the US is about as cold as it gets.

"most of the US" . And yet you think that a group of aliens looking at planet Earth would anchor on that region. This makes no sense. It is what I meant by "parochial".

> The specific number is irrelevant.

Lets set the zero point to an irrelevant number, it's be great!

> does mean that there are objective advantages to it for some purposes.

Sure, I agree. In some places.

> If you can’t sit down and analyze

I can. But if you don't know better than to avoid focussing on that, you're missing the mere familiarity that was emphasised repeatedly.

[sarchertech]

"most of the US" . And yet you think that a group of aliens looking at planet Earth would anchor on that region. This makes no sense. It is what I meant by "parochial".

Then imagine a group of Aliens is building a scale for the United States of America, which in context is the only relevant country since this entire discussion is about the US switching to Celsius. It doesn’t actually have to be aliens. Just a neutral party with no bias towards an existing scale.

> I can. But if you don't know better than to avoid focussing on that, you're missing the mere familiarity that was emphasised repeatedly.

Familiarity is obviously the reason that the US is a metric holdout. No one has ever argued otherwise.

The only point I am making in this entire forsaken thread is that for the very specific purpose of air temperature in the United States, F has a nice advantage to C in that the numbers normally line up 0 to 100 and that all other things being equal humans find scales from 0-100 pleasant.

Multiple People in this thread who have no familiarity with Fahrenheit have agreed with this.

Because it is slightly nicer scale in this specific place for this specific purpose, no one is going to voluntarily switch the way that some people voluntarily switch to grams when baking or mm when working with small objects.