Science Memes

11205 readers

2531 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

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

596

temperature (mander.xyz)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

422 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 216 points 8 months ago (44 children)

Americans always regurgite the "Fahrenheit is how people feel" nonsense, but it is just that: nonsense. Americans are familiar with fahrenheit so they think that it is more inituitive than other systems, but unsurprisingly people who are used to celsius have no problems using it to measure "how people feel" and will think it is a very inituitive system.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (31 children)

Can confirm. Moved from the US to Canada and maybe a year of using Celcius revealed to me just how fucking stupid and convoluted Fahrenheit is. My dad spent three weeks out here and started using Celcius on his phone. Now I only use Fahrenheit when dealing with fevers or temping cases of suspiciously overripe produce.

Fellow Americans. Celcius is superior and more intuitive for those who take a moment to adjust to it. It is okay to accept this as fact without developing an inferiority complex. USA not always #1. USA quite often not #1 and that is okay. It is okay for USA to not be #1 without developing an inferiority complex.

load more comments (30 replies)

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Both are equally arbitrary. You just have to know a handful of temperatures that you use in your day to day life either way.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Celsius being based on water makes it the most intuitive of the three imo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Hum... Around here water boils at ~96°C (some labs measure that). And it seems to not freeze at 0°C anywhere on Earth, as it's never pure water, with never an homogeneous freezing point.

It is repeatable, it's not very arbitrary, but "intuitive" doesn't apply in any way.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

You must be at altitude. That definitely makes a difference for the boiling point, but of course water freezes at 0. Impurities that you'll encounter in tap water, for example, will not have a large effect on freezing point.

Even if it was different by a few degrees, how does that make the scale any less intuitive?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Differences are neglegtable. 96°C is still going to kill you.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (42 replies)