this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
596 points (76.3% liked)

Science Memes

11431 readers
1034 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

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. 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

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If fahrenheit was how people felt, then room temperature would be 0 because that's the ideal temperature. Negative fahrenheit would be too cold, positive to warm.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I would like to use this system you propose. 0 is room temperature, plus/minus 100 is death by freezing or heatstroke... But we probably have to do some work to make units fit in a linear way. Are you filing the patent or am I?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

I was in a sauna at +95 Celsius for several minutes the other day. And within the same week I felt -35 Celsius cold on my bare skin.

Both could kill me provided a bit more exposure, but they don't instantly. Meanwhile, +4 Celsius can also cause death by hypothermia pretty easily in the right circumstances.

So, while I like the idea, I think implementation will be hard as there is no clear death number on either end of the spectrum. Not to mention humidity, clothing, exertion, level of hydration, etc...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That isn't consistent with K and C though. -K doesn't exist. And water doesn't become more frozen at -C (well I guess it technically becomes different kinds of frozen).

Zero in that sense represents the absolute limit that one could exist in a particular state, which for F would be comfort? I guess the issue with humans is that 0 would be very subjective. But I think for almost all humans, the limit would be closer to 40F than 0F.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

-K doesn't exist.

It does though, but negative Kelvin is actually hotter than any positive Kelvin.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

100 is hot out and 0 is cold. That's not crazy. 35 being hot out is pretty arbitrary for day to day use. But if your job is boiling water every day, it's probably not the best.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

The freezing point of water seems a hell of a lot more relevant to what humans consider 'cold'...which is why it's the zero. The boiling point of water isn't the zero in Celsius after all.

Also 'cold' as a concept is often represented with symbols related to frozen water such as snow flakes and icicles.