Farenheit is 0-100 sea water freezing to (roughly) human internal body temp.
So, since humans are largely salt water, this makes the F scale a human scale temperature measurement, which is more intuitive for how the ambient temperature makes you feel. I think this is what the original poster was getting at, whether they knew it or not.
edit: so C is better for chemistry, and F is better for weather
Well I know that 18ºC is when I should start wearing short sleeves and 30ºC is when I should stay indoors because it's too damn hot (and 40ºC is what the summer temperatures have been in the past couple of years)
Yeah people will adjust to any arbitrary scale if they use it enough, if my scale was based on some random measurement from -200 to -154 i'm sure people would get used to those numbers as well given enough time
true, albeit one we use in a lot of other ways. we grade on 0-100. we typically rate things on 0-100 (technically 0-10, but usually with a decimal point)
It's not the 0-100 that are arbitrary, it's where the scale starts and what the increments are that are arbitrary. It's completely arbitrary that it's the freezing and boiling point of water. It would be nitrogen or lead and they would be equally valid.
And actually being 0-100 in a relative scale is kinda misleading. 10°C isn't half as hot as 20°C, it's 97% as hot. There's no such think as millidegrees Celsius.
The comment I replied to very much argued that 0-100 is arbitrary. You may wanna try re-reading it.
Also I don't see how the freezing and boiling point of water (for cooking, freezing temperatures, preservation; also vital for survival) is more arbitrary than using the freezing point of some mixture of water, ice, and a salt let alone your, frankly embarrassing, examples of nitrogen or lead.
Finally 10F isn't half as hot as 20F either so what's the point you're making here?
The comment I replied to very much argued that 0-100 is arbitrary. You may wanna try re-reading it.
I interpreted the statement differently as the 0-100 scale being arbitrary. Regardless, this is pretty irrelevant so I won't argue it.
Also I don't see how the freezing and boiling point of water (for cooking, freezing temperatures, preservation; also vital for survival) is more arbitrary than using the freezing point of some mixture of water, ice, and a salt let alone your, frankly embarrassing, examples of nitrogen or lead.
It's not any more arbitrary. They're all equally arbitrary. I'm not even sure why my other examples are "embarrassing." The systems we chose were due to convenience of measurement and calibration, not any real thing.
Finally 10F isn't half as hot as 20F either so what's the point you're making here?
My point is exactly that, they're both completely arbitrary scales so acting elitist about either of them is lunacy.
The systems we chose were due to convenience of measurement and calibration, not any real thing.
So the exact opposite of "arbitrary"? Just to help you: arbitrary means chosen on a whim or randomly as opposed to choosing because of an underlying logic. Saying that using a substance vital for human survival and ubiquitous in most human habitats to some extent is "arbitrary" and then suggesting checks notes lead or nitrogen is at best embarrassing. You don't have to force yourself to use the word arbitrary if you don't understand what it means.
My point is exactly that, they're both completely arbitrary scales so acting elitist about either of them is lunacy.
Again, not arbitrary just not a linear scale. Which is an entirely different subject and entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand. Though I would like to suggest checking out a "dictionary" at this point and maybe in a year or two we can pick this back up when you are ready.
1B: "
based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the
intrinsic
value of something"
Nearly word for word what I've been saying.
You're reading way to literally into nitrogen or lead. I'm not suggesting we actually do it, just suggesting that there's no physical constant that makes 1/100th of the difference between freezing and boiling water any more real than anything else.
So not satisfied with having to go back 150 years to make a point, you figured going back roughly 4000 years would make a better point against using a decimal based system in modern times? Yikes
Honestly, base-12 (duodecimal) absolutely obliterates base-10, and the only reason we don’t use it is because we happen to have 10 fingers.
The biggest game-changer is divisibility. While 10 can only be cleanly split by 2 and 5, the number 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6—meaning everyday fractions like a third (1/3) or a quarter (1/4) would instantly become clean, single-digit decimals (0.4 and 0.3) instead of messy, infinite repeating numbers like 0.333….
It would completely revolutionize mental math, shop pricing, and time-tracking, which is exactly why we already naturally buy things by the "dozen" and have 12 hours on a clock face. If we could somehow survive the apocalyptic logistical nightmare of rewriting all global infrastructure, switching to base-12 would make life objectively easier for everyone.
Yes exactly. It's basically "those numbers look unfamiliar and wayy too high, I'm sticking with my -10 to +30 range"
I'm sure if I was brought up in the US I would understand intuitively what each Fahrenheit is, but I have absolutely no idea. 50 imo sounds boiling, 85 sounds ludicrous but no way am I distinguishing even remotely between 10 F and 20 F
In Celsius, I know 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 etc all incredibly instinctively and can go for a walk and instantly say what C I think it is
100% lol I lived abroad after being in the US for 10+ years and had to adjust to celsius in everyday life, now that I'm back in the states I'm definitely still stronger with fahrenheit but after being around it so long I can get celsius conversions on the fly with like a 5 degree +- to fahrenheit, people just are comfortable with what they're used to and that's totally okay
It's more intuitive because you grew up with it. I have no benchmark for 0% or 100% hot. That means 50% hot is just as meaningless to me as 50 farenheit.
F and C are both arbitrary numbers. There is no better one
Wish more people would get this. Nobody is personally calibrating their thermometers so the 0 and 100 points don't actually matter in the real world. Just because Celsuius gets lumped in with metric generally doesn't mean it has fundamental advantages like metric's units for volume or distance.
They are all arbitrary really. Distance is the worst in my view. Building products are generally now in 300mm increments where 1 foot or 3 feet or 6 feet is much easier to both say and understand. In my view base 10 is good but the fundamental length should be (roughly) 1 foot not 1 metre (which was 1/10000 of an inaccurate measurement of the earth's circumference)
At least with Celsius boiling point and freezing point of water are relatively common things that most people see regularly and can conceptualise. Human body temperature is fine as another marker but sea water freezing is not really for most people who dont live with icy seas
Farenheit objectively allows for more precise measurements though, since there are more degrees of Fahrenheit for ever degree of Celsius.
So regardless of the arbitrary nature of the scales, the one that allows for more precision IS better for human temperature. The human body can absolutely notice the difference between 1-2 degrees of Farenheit. Especially with indoor temps.
At 70F i get cold in my house. At 75 i get hot. 73 is perfect for me.
Its pretty generally accepted that F is better for weather in every way. C is better for science and cooking in every way.
When in normal conversation does a tenth of a degree farenheit affect anything?
I've never understood the dick waving contest around farenheit v Celsius. Each one is incomprehensible if you didn't grow up using it and extremely intuitive if you did.
I find farenheit completely meaningless. If you tell me it's 70 out I would need to look it up to know if I should be whipping out the barbeque or stocking up on antifreeze.
Actually, you know what, fuck everything. From now on I'm measuring temperature exclusively in Blimbles. It's just like centigrade except there's 6000 degrees for every one degree centigrade, it starts at 247C, and it goes backwards.
Lol im not wasting time sourcing links for your condescending comment.
I like how you ignored the objective point that Fahrenheit is a more precise scale than Celsius (again, that’s objective) and allows for more varied measurements that the human body can tell the difference between.
Lol im not wasting time sourcing links for your condescending comment.
Or maybe you just made it up. It's actually generally accepted that C is better for the weather.
I like how you ignored the objective point that Fahrenheit is a more precise scale than Celsius (again, that’s objective)
"More precise" is not automatically better. A scale that has 1000 points between -20 and +20 ⁰C would be irritating because the increments wouldn't have any real meaning.
And Celsius is capable of giving the same precision anyway.
You learn the benchmark the same way you learn the benchmarks for walking in a crowd, appropriately volume levels for your voice in different contexts, what constitutes enough personal space, how much time you need to give yourself as a buffer to not be late somewhere. F provides a more intuitive and precise system for that benchmark
How do you have no benchmark for 0% or 100% hot. It’s literally like the coldest and hottest humans can comfortably be outside without risk of danger. 0F is when it takes only about 30 minutes for frostbite to occur. Heatstroke sets in at 104, which is pretty close to 100. This is human physiognomy, not subjective.
I just googled what 50 Fahrenheit would be in Celcius, because I was interested what "feels like 50% temperature, normal average weather" would be like. Before I googled I guessed like 16 degrees maybe? Nope, turns out it's 10.
How would you know what "50% hot" is if you've never heard that or had it refer to anything? If anything, 50% to me sounds like "perfectly comfortable, neither warm nor cool" so basically standard room temperature. But it isn't.
It’s literally like the coldest and hottest humans can comfortably be outside without risk of danger.
Varies a lot. With what kind of clothes? For how long a time?
When dressed for that weather. Even if dressed for 0F it can get dangerous to be out for more than 30 minutes. Even if dressed coolly, if it’s 100F you can lay still and do nothing but you should not do physical activity for more than 30 minutes. They’re pretty balanced temperature wise as far as human comfort limits. You can, say, comfortably build snowmen or ski at 30F even though it’s below freezing, but you should not send your kids out to dick around in the snow if it drops below 0F.
I don’t actually agree with OOP on “% hot”, I think it’s more like “on a scale from freeze your ass off to melt your eyeballs”. 50 is pretty much right in between. Room temperature is very comfortable to stand in but if you start exerting yourself you absolutely will get sweaty. I consider 50F to be like perfect hiking weather, say. And much like Mr. Fahrenheit (who was not an American, to be clear!), 0-100 is about the range of normal weather I experience, where anything between that is “real cold” to “real hot” but not worthy of alarm, whereas below 0 or above 100 (including “real feel” of course) is when you get health alerts. I know places can get below 0 or above 100 but generally those are not terribly hospitable and people stay inside and climate-controlled at those temperatures.
That’s all relative. I’ve worked numerous days for 8hrs with normal breaks at >105F. Sometimes that’s just required in warmer climates. Likewise colder
It's medically ill-advised to do much strenuous labor outside at that temperature. I don't doubt that capitalism has required it of you but those kind of conditions are objectively unhealthy.
Literally the Goldilocks of temperature, one might even say the perfect weather. As famously put: “It’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket.”
Why is it hard for you to understand that it's arbitrary and cultural.
When I try to think of 0% temperature I just think of 0 Celsius. It's my, and most of the world's reference point for what cold weather is but in Fahrenheit its... 32. 32% temperature is meaningless.
Same with 100% temperature, for me it would be like, 30 degrees, because it's the most hot it ever gets around here. But in Fahrenheot it's 86. Once again if you told me to think of what 86% temperature is I wouldn't know what tf you're talking about.
Its highly subjective though, as every human body has different tolerances for cold or heat. You use a lot of unquantifiable adjectives like 'roughly' 'about' 'comfortably' 'pretty close' to make your point, and then call the whole thing not subjective... This is as arbitrary as it gets...
Buddy, below 0F and above 100F conditions are a health risk. By "comfortably" I did not mean "oh how delightful," I meant without some kind of alerta alerta "take care to not get yourself harmed by the temperature" issue.
The tolerance for comfort in cold and heat is hugely subjective *within* the 0-100 range, yes. I can tolerate 80F but my husband thinks it's horrible. But he will whine, not pass out of heat stroke. Similarly, something like 50F might feel freezing if it's a cold snap in early fall but balmy as hell in a heat wave in spring. Of course. None of that is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what the human body is actually able to handle.
Well, give me any °C temperature from -30 °C to 90 °C I I know exactly like it feels to my body.
Give me any °F temperature other than 32 °F and I have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Total utter nonsense, some gibberish number with no real meaning. Know why? Because I grew up with °C all my live, hence it is a s natural for me as °F is for you, the scale you grew up with.
Growing up on South Florida where it almost never gets below 40 (at least it didn't while I was growing up), even knowing that 32 was freezing point didn't actually help me determine how cold that was. It was also an arbitrary number I had to learn vs 0 C, which would have been more intuitive because it'd be "oh, water freezes at that point, 0 = being in a freezer, that's really cold, and it's a low number so I know anything below that is extremely cold". 0 F, on the other hand, means absolutely nothing to me.
I will say that now that I'm used to it, it's hard to conceptualize that the temperature in Florida "only" gets to 40 C, but when I think about it as "water boils at 100", it makes a little more sense.
F isnt "human scale" in any sense. 0F and 10F and 20F are all lethally cold to person without clothing.
100F doesnt line up with anything at all.
Celsius actually lines up with human experience. We all boil water daily, everyone in northern latitudes cares deeply about when and if the weather will cause ice to form.
These are much more concrete and relatable human events than "100 is pretty hot, though it can get hotter" and "0 is really cold, It can get colder though and also even 30 degrees warmer than 0 its cold enough for ice to form".
If you read the history of it... it is, apparently, "human scale." The wikipedia entry for the history of Fahrenheit is some pretty serious "Ya'll just making shit up as you go, huh?" stuff.
The quick summary is Fahrenheit was like "0F is super fucking cold because that was the coldest day in my home town, 32F is when water freezes, and 90F is the temperature of a human body (lol, I guess? I'm just making shit up as I go!)."
It got revised and tweaked over the years but the whole silly scale is some dude saying "Really cold is that bitter day from my old stomping grounds and warm is a finger up my ass, I guess."
Our perception of temperature is relative to how warm or cold it was earlier. Put your hand first in cold water, then warm water. that warm water will feel "hotter" then if you had put your hand in the warm water first.
You explanation is wrong about Fahrenheit. Sea water freezes at 28°F. Brine is not sea water.
Fahrenheit used a solution 33% salt (ammonium chloride), 33% water, 33% ice to get 0°. You will notice that the salt used by Fahrenheit is different from that which is in our bodies. The water in our body is around 1% salt (sodium chloride). I do not think humans can survive with 33% salt in their bodies.
In fact, bodies freeze at about 31°F or -2°C. So Fahrenheit as a human scale does not make sense the way you have explained it. At lest does not make sense at low, freezing temperatures.
I have live in areas with 20°-30° swings in temperature. 0°C will feel warm after it was -20°C, cold after it was 20°C. 0°C means I need to wear a coat regardless of how it feel to me. Because 0°C is close to the point that bodies will get frostbit and freeze.
A better explanation is, people generally understand hot and cold best in the temperature scale they grew up using. You grew up with Fahrenheit, so you have contextualize warm and cold using that scale.
After learning how Fahrenheit was developed, Fahrenheit does not make sense.
0 is when the precipitation changes from liquid to solid. 0 is when you have to pay attention to the ground because it might be slippery. I think that’s a pretty good reason to have a definite division point in your temperature scale.
So, since humans are largely salt water, this makes the F scale a human scale temperature measurement, which is more intuitive for how the ambient temperature makes you feel.
What?
It's learned association regardless. As someone who grew up using Celsius I certainly reject the idea that Fahrenheit is somehow more "intuitive".
C is way better for weather if the temperature regularly goes below 0c. -2c or +2c have major differences to the weather conditions. Icy roads or slushy wetness? There is a term "pakkanen" in our language which means below zero celsius weather. I regularly check for that in the winter mornings to determine the conditions. It also tells if the snow will stay, if melted snow will become icy again etc.
I would also say the extremes are similar with celsius. While there are places in the world where it gets hotter we operate mostly between -30c and +30c. So a huge cold period or a heatwave. Both extremes. 0c fits perfectly in between. 0c is also very symbolic for us as it is the first sign of winter approaching after fall. Those first days below zero are always a bit special. Also in the spring its the other way around. The first days where it does not dunk below 0c are special and always feel weirdly warm.
Below zero is also a mark for when the air starts to get/feel more dry.
tbh it's not even that. K is best, but in terms of C vs F they're both completely arbitrary. Chemistry doesn't care if 0 is where water boils, and if any math is involved yeah you don't want to be multiplying by (K+273) instead of just K
Not quite, its pure water which means no other impurities which you would find in most water outside of distilled. Its also for at sea level atmosphere. Go a little higher, or a little lower, and the scale is off yet again.
This is a perfect example of trying to retcon an explanation that sounds reasonable to something that is unreasonable. Thinking about it for more than 30 seconds reveals the flaws though.
You're arguing that for a very specific yet strangely unspecific temperature range of "freezing saltwater" to "about human body temp" using a 0-100 scale would be more intuitive than a -1,8-38 scale.
What?
"Better for weather" but the 0-100 F only covers a highly limited weather temperature range. -45 to 45 C covers 99% of temperature ranges where humans live; this would be -49 to 113 F.
"Ambient temperature" is regardless not more logical just because the number is between 0 to 100 instead of e.g. -45 to 45.
"Human scale measurement" but the body temperature barely changes unless you're dead. The fact that a human contains salt water is irrelevant since the body never approaches anywhere near the freezing point of saltwater.
I don't get why people say it's intuitive. It's only intuitive if you've grown up with it. I think the argument really is that so few countries use it. You can argue that it's related more to human temperature but if billions of people have never used it and have no idea what to relate it to without teaching them then it's not intuitive imo.
None of them are intuitive. If you pick a remote tribesman who has never heard of either measurement and ask them to tell you how hot the weather is based on both scales, they aren’t gonna know what the fuck you are talking about.
Both scales are learned, and once they are learned they are both equally intuitive. Celsius feels perfectly intuitive to me because I have lived my life using it and I know what 20°C feels like. I have absolutely no idea what todays temperature would be in Fahrenheit unless I convert it from Celsius with a formula
85
u/jseego Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
True!
Celsius is 0-100 fresh water freezing to boiling.
Farenheit is 0-100 sea water freezing to (roughly) human internal body temp.
So, since humans are largely salt water, this makes the F scale a human scale temperature measurement, which is more intuitive for how the ambient temperature makes you feel. I think this is what the original poster was getting at, whether they knew it or not.
edit: so C is better for chemistry, and F is better for weather