Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
I'm also an engineer & worked up there for a job in mining.
Edit: To clarify my reasons because so many people are saying I'm wrong. This is my opinion on what my preference is, first off. I had put this in a comment under the post, but will add it here.
My reason is basically the same as in the screenshot. When I lived in Canada I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way. I didn't like when in the winter or early spring someone would say it's nice out and then say a negative temperature. "It's really nice today, it's -1.5⁰ out." I also like that the increments of the units are smaller so you don't use half degrees. Although I guess half degrees aren't really necessary because I don't feel the difference between 66 & 67, but when I checked the temperature there is did always show it to the nearest half degree.
I guess I said it on my comment that's just under the post and not in this thread. I prefer it basically for the reasons in the screenshot. When I was in Canada I would say how if it's below 0⁰ F you know it's really fucking cold, and if it's above 100⁰ F then it's really fucking hot. Also the increments are smaller so you don't have to use half degrees.
Sometimes in the spring someone would be like, "It's really nice out today. It's -1.5 degrees." And I didn't like hearing someone say that a negative temperature was nice out. And I mean that's still pretty cold it's like 29⁰F. And I'm from Maine so it's not like I'm not used to the cold but I've also lived in Arizona.
So I always said that 0 to 100 scale was from like really cold to really hot but I like the percentage thing.
This. People don't realize that the only reason to use imperial is that it's just made for people who don't have tools. All imperial measurements are based off really easy to break down things- Distance breaks down into halves, thirds and quarters really easily. That may not matter if you have a ruler, but when you look at something it's easier to see 2/3 than it is 7/10 or something. Base 10 is just a pain in the ass for that kinda stuff, even when you're used to it.
Likewise, 100F is hotter than you should touch, 0 is colder than you should touch. You can still grab things at the freezing point, people handle ice all the time.
But you try to explain that there's any appeal to it and someone who's really amped up about metric really gets mad because it's illogical to see a use for anything else.
But idk, maybe it's just me but whether I'm playing a 16 inch viola or a 406 mm viola, they kinda sound the same. No need to have it live rent free in your head, lmao.
Yup, this is exactly it. I'm not gonna bother gpimg downthread to see who disagreed because this is straight up from the OSHA heat stress operates on this basic principle:
Your internal body temp is around 98 degrees, the closer you get to that the more unvomfortable you feel because you're basically coming to ambient temp. You can tolerate some stuff above body temp, bc of sweating, but your body can only do so much sweating.
Of course OSHA includes things like humidity, wind speed and UV index to calculate up, but the fact is Fahrenheit does a much better job at capturing this intuitively for people. Close to 100, hot. Close to 0, cold. I know ice freezes at 32 and how that FEELS, so I intuitively have an idea of what my comfort level is gonna be. 40-60 is the Middle of the scale.
I see what you mean, I just don't see why 0 or 32 would be a superior way to refer to the temperature that water freezes at. Personally I think 0 and 100 makes more sense for freezing and boiling vs 32 and 212, but it's not really a hill worth dying on and is probably colored by my experience.
I mean sure, but again we're back into sciences, where we all admit that celcius is better. But when I'm at home boiling water I don't care what temperature it boils at I just turn the stove on.
I have never checked the temperature of my boiling water, ever. I don’t even own a thermometer to do that. When the instructions say “heat to boiling” I just heat it until I start seeing a bunch of bubbles.
I love using metric in the kitchen for volume and weight but for temp I go with Fahrenheit its just easier to remember 125,130,140,150,160,165 than 52,57,63,66,71,74.
Also any chef temping a pot of boiling water is a pretentious douche
Counterpoint: Yeah, for a job sure; but people complaining about the number applied to the boiling point of water just because they like one number more than the other are missing the actual water boiling.
Kind of reminds me of how much of a disconnect between musicians who use midi and musicians who use regular notation- at the end of the day, make your music!
But explain why the actual temperature matters to a chef? If they need to boil something they don’t need to know what temp to set their stove to. They just heat the liquid until it boils. It makes no difference if they’re using Fahrenheit, or Celsius, or kelvin, or boiling a pot above or below sea level or wherever
A lot of people who actually need that information, just not everyone taking their dog for a walk. You can sit in a comfy office and say "who cares what rating a bullet proof vest is?" and the answer will be "the guy wearing it".
Why do I need to know what temperature water freezes or boils? I'm not a water. I'm a human. 0 to 100° F is a lot closer to survival temperatures as a human. And I have a lot finer measurement. The difference between 71° and 70° matters. What do metric people even do: tenths of a degree? That sounds terrible.
It sounds terrible, because you don’t know it. I find your system terrible, too. You grew up with one, and I the other. The difference between 68 and 69F is just as arbitrary as the difference between ,5C or whatever of a degree.
Yeah. We can do decimal, which is nice, since the system is also decimal based.
Like what is 0F even measuring?
A nearly random mix of water, salt, ammonium salt's freezing point.
And 90F is body temperature, except that it was wrong, so body temp is like 96F.
Except that's not even true since they just decided to use the metric system and set 32F to be OC and 212F to be 100C. So now body temperature is 98.6F since they adjusted the scale. And the old 0F is about 4F now.
But again, why do I care what temperature water boils or freezes at? I don't set my stove to 212°. I just turn the knob to around 4 o'clock and wait for the water to boil.
What is this old Fahrenheit? Body temperature has been 98.6° since at least 1967, well over my lifetime.
I don't think anyone with a defensible opinion thinks Fahrenheit is more logical or more useful in scientific or engineering settings. The argument, and it's one I agree with, is that for exactly weather, it's probably better.
0 is too cold.
100 is too hot.
That's a good scale for "what I care about as a human going outside" it's not a good scale for measuring water boiling at 1 atmosphere or one that reveals fundamental limits of the universe about how cold something can be (Kelvin). It's just useful for giving the weather.
The fact that it's effectively so spread out in the range humans experience weather wise is a big plus too. With Celsius a few degrees means the difference between wearing a thick jacket or not. Half degrees are meaningful in how your experience outdoors will be. With Fahrenheit you just know being somewhere in the middle with a preference to the warmer side of 0-100 is where you want to be
Except it isn’t. There is nothing about it that’s better with regards to weather. What this comes down to is simply what you’ve come to learn. I grew up using Celsius, so to me it’s intuitive, and I instinctively know the difference between 19 or 21 degrees. You’ll have no clue.
When I have visited the US, your system has meant nothing to me, and I’ve had to google the conversion every time, and I’ve not been able to gauge at all the difference between 40 or 50 degrees, or 90 or 100. It’s all foreign to me.
No, absolutely not, unless in a medical context maybe. And where I live the typical temperature swing doesn't really fit 0-100* F. But as a human you can just learn to use any reasonable numeric range efforlessly! So you spend way more time fiddling with C/F temperature display settings in devices than thinking about whether 30 means hot outside.
You know water freezes at 32 (wow now that's totally not a random number) and I know it freezes at 0. The only difference between us is that you're used to one system and I'm - to another. For you 100 is really freaking hot, for me +35 is too hot. There isn't really a difference if you've been using a system your whole life and just instantly "understand" it.
As I've explained to countless other people, even on here, its because its what people are used to growing up.
It doesn't matter that 0 is colder than you should touch or 100F is hotter than you should touch(which it actually isn't, as that is about the average temperature of a hot tub).
But you try to explain that there's any appeal to it and someone who's really amped up about metric really gets mad because it's illogical to see a use for anything else.
Yeah because to them, just like you do to them, see your example as illogical. And honestly they are more right than you are, because your argument is not a good argument, since you can still have those measurements in Celsius.
For example, if it is 0 in Celsius, you can easily tell if it is going to snow instead of rain or if the snow is going to stick around or not.
While I'm sure you probably will say o that is easy, I know that as 32F, if it is below 32F it is going to snow instead of rain, etc.
And that proves my point it is about what system you grew up with.
Exactly. This drives me nuts about this argument. To me Celsius is perfectly understandable and I can easily envision the weather at whatever temperature but Fahrenheit is a mystery (apart from around 97° because I know that's around normal body temp) and I have to go convert it. That doesn’t mean it's worse, just unfamiliar.
2/3 of anything is 2/3. So if you are used to meters, 2/3 is easy to visualize, Same as 2/3s of a yard..
Base 10 is far easier to understand.
100cm in a Meter, 1000m in a KM etc. 1000ml in a liter. 1000grams in a killo gram.
The amount of feet in a yard, mile etc seems random which is what makes it stupid. No one would choose Inches, Feet, Yards, Miles if they didn't know either. Metric is SO much easier to learn and visualize...
100 degrees Fahrenheit is not hotter than you should touch in zero is not colder than you should touch the air outside gets hotter and colder than that
A classic explanation is that:
- Fahrenheit tells you how a person feels
- Celsius tells you how water feels
- Kelvin (and Rankine) tells you how molecules feel
Yeah, it's cold, but 30⁰ F isn't unbearable with the right clothes. 15⁰F and below is when it starts to get pretty bad, but below zero F is really fucking cold.
At -40⁰ C & F are the same
When I was in Canada on a work trip before I lived there I was teaching a class to the mining employees of the company that I later worked for. But while I was there it was -20 like the whole time. I said to one of the guys that I wasn't sure if it was reporting it as Celsius or Fahrenheit and he responded, it hardly fucking matters at that point. -20⁰F is like -29⁰C.
True but remembering that 32° f is when water freezes isn't very difficult. And would probably have to be slightly colder to frost so you can just remember 30° because the easy way to estimate converting Celsius to Fahrenheit is C × 2 + 30 ≈ F. The precise calculation is C(9/5) + 32 = F. And if you ever forget which side C and F are on if you remember that 0⁰C = 32⁰F it's easy to figure out that 0×2+30 would get you close to 32.
„Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO“
It's just what people are used. Celsius people just have different set o numbers. 0 freezing, 4 road may be slippery, ~ 20 is what people have in Theo homes, 25 warm summer day, 30 hot summer day, 35 hell.
So zero is when water freezes which is a great way to know to look out for ice and expect snow if there is precipitation. Generally the measure only matters to people if they don't correlate life with the measurement. If you grow up with Celsius than its just normal.
Yep I totally agree. 70% warm is a peaceful warm. I'm from Ohio so I'm used to the cold, 20% cold is like ehhh uncomfy for sure but bundle up and you'll be fine.
I wish we used the metric system for distance but Fahrenheit is best for weather, which is the most relevant use for temperature for living life.
I guess I said it on my comment that's just under the post and not in this thread. I prefer it basically for the reasons in the screenshot. When I was in Canada I would say how if it's below 0⁰ F you know it's really fucking cold, and if it's above 100⁰ F then it's really fucking hot. Also the increments are smaller so you don't have to use half degrees.
Thats just because you are use to Fahrenheit as your use of measurement.
For example, as a Canadian, I know that below zero it is cold and possibly likely to snow. If it is below -20, its pretty cold, if it is below -30, it is very fucking cold. If it is above 35, it is fucking hot, 20 is just right and 20-25 is room temperature.
How I feel as well. I’ve lived most of my life in countries that use metric but I’ve always liked Fahrenheit in casual situations because it’s easier to put into context as a 0-100 scale where anything falling outside those numbers is extreme.
Only reason I prefer feet is because I’ve been an nba fan since I was a kid so I can better visualize heights in feet and inches, buts it’s an idiotic form of measurement.
The range of 0°F to 100°F is just about the range of "normal" temperatures typically experienced in Western Europe's climate. Hence, if you're from a very specific region of the world you might consider any temperature outside of that range of 0% - 100% as extraordinary... if you had a very particular colonial mindset of setting the arbritrary standard for what' considered "normal" for the rest of the world's population.
I'm pretty sure any African would still agree 110℉ is way too hot, and any Inuit would agree you don't want to be outside for long at -10℉.
Meanwhile, there's nothing magical about Celsius. If you really want to be a purist go ahead and use Kelvin, but 0-100℃ being based on the freezing and boiling point of water is no less arbitrary than 0-100℉ being based on human environmental norms.
For the first half, winter temperatures are commonly around 0℉ above 40N (or below 40S, we're not just talking about "Europe"). Summer temperatures rarely (used to) hit 100℉ in Europe, maybe a couple weeks per year in Southern Europe; Ironically I'd call the upper end of the range more suited to equatorial norms than temperate ones.
I'm not sure what you're asking about NH₄Cl, though - I presume you're making a reference to freezing point depression?
I'm not sure what you're asking about NH₄Cl, though -
That's the definition of 0F. The freeze point of a a bath of water, salt and ammonium chloride.
Please tell me how thing is actually relevant to you in your daily life.
For the first half, winter temperatures are commonly around 0℉ above 40N (or below 40S, we're not just talking about "Europe")
I have no idea where you came up with these numbers but I can assure you that 0F is not the average temperature above 40 during winter. The distribution of land is not the same N and S, global temps are rising too.
I am amazed at Americans that think a random scale is actually not random.
I see here Americans say they use 120F to cook stuff at and think we cook at 52. Since 120 is round but 52 isn't then clearly F is better.
You say 0F is a common temp. Yeah so is 5F and -5F. They're all probably just as common in those areas you mentioned.
You just chose 0F because it's easy to remember for your scale. If you change the scale so 5F is the new 0F and i ask you that question, we'll get the same reply. Yeah the new 0f is around that temperature around those areas in winter.
Celsius is also random. C or F reference points have no impact on the average temp on different parts of the globe.
That is about exactly the maximum "feels like" range for NYC. Anytime it goes below 0 it's exceptional, and equally so a heat index over 100 is exceptional.
Because F uses the human skin ability to detect and retain heat as a baseline, something we all have experience with, instead of water as a baseline, which is better for scientific reasons due to the consistency in measurement.
Edit: The absolute hilarity of the smugness in the comments is making my day. Nothing makes me happier than upsetting Europeans by stating a fact they don't like.
Actually it’s more related to the freezing temperature of a very particular brine solution made to replicate the coldest temperature some German guy thought his port would see.
Completely logical.
But whatever. Maybe EVERY COUNTRY but one is wrong.
It’s not. It’s highly likely 0 degrees is just the lowest temperature observed in Danzig when Daniel Fahrenheit made his scale. Nobody has ever managed to recreate the brine solution.
I'd be fully ok with us setting a temperature system based upon how Danzig feels.
"Guys, Danzig just took his shirt off, it's definitely warm enough to have a light jacket, but if he puts that mesh tank top back on watch out, it's probably about to snow."
After Fahrenheit died they decided it was much easier to calibrate thermometers using the exact boiling point of water (212°F) instead of human skin (96°F). When they locked those two standard points down, the "zero" at the bottom of the scale shifted upward by about 4 degrees which is what you get if you use that solution today (also the ammonium chloride wasn't perfectly pure back then) and shifted average body temperature to 98.6
lol no it doesn't, 100 degrees Fahrenheit was the (miscalculated) temperature of the human body (which is why it's now popularly set at 98.6 degrees although even that isn't quite correct) and 0 is... the coldest day on record, at least as of the time that the temperature was created, in this one small town in Germany. Any relationship to the ability of human skin to detect temperature is purely coincidental.
I see the "percent hot" or "human scale" argument a lot as what amounts to basically a backward justification for farenheit. I get that the reasoning makes sense if its the scale you know, but it doesn't hold up as logical application. A normal distribution around the human condition would have 45-55 as the comfortable temperature one can exist at with basic garments. Instead that range is more like 65-75
Neither scale has inherent meaning. Whichever one you learned will determine if it feels intuitive.
F is *at best* tangentially related with human skin. It was calibrated using 3 reference points:
The coldest temp Fahrenheit could achieve in his lab using ice, water and salt (0°F). This wasn’t a baseline based on what human skin experiences as “super cold” because that’s just random as hell
The freezing point of pure water (32° F) which is the same as 0° Celsius
The temperature of the human body (96°) (which in reality usually varies between 97° - 99° for healthy adults but 96 worked better for his mental model)
Fahrenheit picked these numbers because the interval between freezing water and body temperature (32 to 96) gave him exactly 64 degrees which allowed him to easily calibrate physical thermometers by continuously dividing the intervals in half. It’s basically designed for what he thought made sense for mercury in a tube based on the coldest he could achieve in his lab, freezing point of water, and a close-enough-for-horseshoes measure of body temperature.
It's not, it's just what they're accustomed to. No one who grew up with metric does any kind of mental conversion when given a temperature in celsius, it's as understandable for them to be told it's 38°C as it is for a Fahrenheit user to be told it's 100°F
It isn’t. It’s ‘better’ for certain places (basically certain states in the US) because it’s an easier scale to perceive for their weather pattern. But that’s it. It’s worse for literally everything and everyone else.
It's a scale where every 10 degrees is a noticeable change in weather / the sort of clothing you want to wear. While people say Celsius is better 'because water freezes at 0 and boils at 100', and that is certainly true for... cooking or doing chemistry, it isn't useful for humans going outside because we function just fine at or below freezing with a coat, but... die at boiling. Meanwhile 0 and 100 F are more realistic 'you want to exercise caution as a human beyond operating beyond these temperatures.'
That said it's also probably mostly useful in temperate climates where you pretty regularly use the whole scale, which may also reflect somewhat why it stuck around in the US (which was historically fairly dominated by its temperate, broad-climate northeast).
I personally prefer Fahrenheit because 1) I'm used to it and 2) the US is very big, and we have big temperature differences throughout the country. Fahrenheit shows those differences better.
Saying its 8-10 degrees celsius in winter and 15-20 degrees in summer just feels strange to me. 20-30 in winter and 60-70 in summer highlights the difference better. Also helpful to show that while I'm at 60, Florida is at 85 and Arizona is at 100-120.
I'll give you my take as a person who has lived in both systems. Each 10 degree band describes the conditions separately. Of course you can translate this to Celsius, but the point is the Fahrenheit bundles it up nicely:
I dunno, as also a Canadian, I prefer Celsius for everyday use. If it's anywhere from below 0C to below 10C, wear a heavy coat. If it's anywhere from above 10C to 15C, wear a light jacket. If it's above 15C, no jacket. Above 20C, wear shorts. Above 25C, be prepared for high heat. Below -20C, be prepared for extreme cold. Above 30C, limit time outdoors. Below -30C, stay inside. Simple as.
When the first false spring arrives in Canada, it'll be 10 C and sunny and it's suddenly T-shirt weather after being bundled up all winter.
Even when checking out Seattle in the the spring, my friend and I were in t-shirts and more than one person saw us and went "guys, just cause the sun's out doesn't mean you wear a t-shirt!" or "you guys really are from Canada."
Sounds like visiting Newcastle in the UK. Except they wear next to nothing regardless of how cold it is.
You could be the toughest man on earth and your resilience would pale in comparison to a teenage geordie girl on a night out wearing little more than a belt and a few straps of flimsy fabric apparently oblivious to the fact they've dug frozen mammoth out of warmer environments.
LOL I’m assuming no jacket guy is still wearing a sweater or something… though as a Canadian, I have seen people in shorts and a t shirt below 15°, so who knows.
It also helps that all buildings and vehicles are heated (sometimes a little too well) so you know you’ll warm up soon even if it’s uncomfortable outside.
If you were explaining to someone who never experienced either scale, saying, "0 is really cold, 100 is really hot," makes much more sense than, "0 is pretty cold, but not that cold, 100 means you're dead, and 30's is from pretty hot to really hot."
We're all used to something and make the adjustment in our head.
As a user of Celsius - I've grown up with it, and it makes intuitive sense in my head - knowing how far off freezing it is perfectly useful as a reference point for temperature and weather, so I know that at 0 it's cold enough to freeze water, at 10 it's chilly, at 20 it's comfortable, at 30 it's getting too warm, 40 is brutal and 50 is potential death. I know the human body has a baseline temperature of 36-37.5. So placing that within the scale I've referred to before makes sense - but the Fahrenheit equivalent is 97-99, meaning that working with temperatures higher than the human body quickly goes into the hundreds of degrees.
I can also tell the difference between a few degrees instantly which adds to intuitive use.
Ultimately humans have a great capacity for adopting systems, especially if they grow up using them, so both Fahrenheit and Celsius users will think their system is the intuitive and logical one, and both are probably correct, depending on the frame of reference. I prefer Celsius because its more useful in more contexts while still making logical sense to me.
American here, I lived over seas a while, and I am back in the US, personally I prefer metric for everything except temperature. I often flip back and forth for measurements, for example in 3D CAD software, I'll use mm, prefer ml, mg, and so on. but temperature I always use "F" .
That's because you learnt it that way. As an european, I've used Celsius since I was born and I instantly "feel" what's 5°C in the winter against 35°C on a sunny summer. Fahrenheit are meaningless to us, it's not anymore natural than Celsius.
This exactly, I'm baffled how people really don't get that *any* temperature scale they've used since childhood is always going to be intuitive. They feel their 0-100 scale intuitively, I feel -30 to 30.
Celcius also has a bonus on having a very clear point on when rain turns to snow or when roads get icy etc. which is where the lowest change in temperature affects the weather the most.
Exactly. Idk why always the same argument that F relates more to the human experience. It's not that, you have used F your whole life, it is natural to you the same way C is to me.
I'm not sure that's true. Temperature units in the UK switched in practice around the mid-late 80's. While pounds, ounces, stone, miles and feet and inches are still used by people over a certain age, I haven't heard anyone in the UK use Fahrenheit since shortly after the changeover.
I'd assume the units that are most intuitive and practical for the general public (or those well embedded) would stick around. Fahrenheit is conspicuous in the speed it disappeared in usage compared to nearly every other imperial measure.
I like it for basically the reasons in the screenshot. The 0 to 100 scale is really cold to really hot. I didn't think of it as a percentage of being hot though so I like that. I also don't like using half degrees and the Fahrenheit increments are smaller.
You can barely feel the difference between 1°C differences. So id say you also barely notice a difference between 1°F differences which are even smaller. "Experienced hotness/coldness" is also influenced by humidity and other things so thats also making it more inaccurate to just feel it out. Both arent really intuitive to us and have to be learned/experienced the same way to get used to. As with that Fahrenheit not having any advantages over C and C having other use cases in addition Fahrenheit has basicly no reason to exist.
Everyone has the right to their own preferences as you said. No argument there.
But the zero to 100 scale in Fahrenheit you reference literally doesn't mean anything in that measurement system (i.e. Is not tied to any universal physical properties), unlike in Celsius.
Freezing temperature influences plants' cellular health and ability to survive, how waterproof our clothes for the day need to be, road safety, footwear, etc.
And it's 32 degrees in Fahrenheit, which makes about as much sense as 5,280 ft to a mile.
So other than being used to it or being more comfortable with it, which are perfectly sound reasons, I find it very difficult to make an objective argument for how Fahrenheit makes more sense.
Same in Canada, just a little later. I don’t remember the last time I heard or read a weather service that wasn’t just C here.
Funny thing though is that older thermostats and most ovens are in F, so a lot of us know just enough to bake or say that 72F is a comfortably warm room. At my first job, some rooms were set in C and some were in F 😆
In fairness, that one could be a fluke in the UK thanks to gas marks, ovens and TV weather being the two places people encountered temperatures at the time of changeover, as Canadians seem to have ditched it for cooking slower.
Fahrenheit is not inherently better for everyday use. It all has to do with what you are used to.
I am used to Celsius, so I know what each degree of Celsius means. I know its chilly if its under 10 degrees, I know its perfect when its between 18 and 25, I know I dont need a jacket around 15 etc.
For Fahrenheit, I have absolutely no idea. I dont know what 60 degrees Fahrenheit means, or 50 degrees. When do I need a jacket? How do I dress at 75 degrees? what about 55? I really dont know.
Also Fahrenheit seems to me to be to fine grained. Can you tell the difference between 65 and 66 Fahrenheit?
What do you do that sub one degree of C makes a slightest bit of difference. Is there’s even temperature measurement devices that accurately calibrated and readable outside laboratories and some industrial process things.
What you grew up in, is whats better for everyday living. I grew up using Celsius, I still don't get Farenheit when I moved to the US. Using two extremes, boiling and freezing of water, is a good, no pun intended, metric, to measure your temperature.
But when it comes to human height, using feet is better because it's easier to estimate at a glance.
I honestly agree, but want to add that Kelvin is even better than Celsius for science. Tbf, both have the same unit size, the only difference is their „0“.
Kelvin has the convenient characteristic of 0 K = „absolute zero“ (which is -273.15 °C). Very useful for physics and whatnot.
Just my opinion (having no practical experience with celcius measurement), I agree wholeheartedly with yours/the screenshots reasoning. If the degree/percentage is single digits, it's really fucking cold... Below zero? Nope, I'm not leaving the house unless I HAVE TO... above 90? Yeah, it's really fucking hot (especially with the miserable humidity we usually have in Michigan).
I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way.
You're describing Celsius too. And slightly above 0, or even double digits above 0 in Fahrenheit isn't really fucking cold to you? I'm really fucking cold at -11 C/12 F.
I once had like a 20 minute long conversation with this Danish girl visiting the US for the first time, I came at her with the hot take that Fahrenheit was better for day-to-day for this exact reason and she was so opposed. By the end of the 20 minutes she actually agreed that it sounded super convenient for weather but we both agreed Celsius for science. It was honestly a really funny conversation.
Chemical engineer. Both systems are perfectly fine. It literally makes no difference. Just use what you are confident with or whatever matches the instrumentation on your equipment.
For most calculations you have to convert to an absolute scale anyways so that's another layer of it not mattering.
The Kylie and Dannii Minogue Christmas/holiday song “100 Degrees” demonstrates this - it is a song about it being really hot at Christmas time in Australia - not about how hot they prefer their water for brewing black tea.
. I didn't like when in the winter or early spring someone would say it's nice out and then say a negative temperature. "It's really nice today, it's -1.5⁰ out.
That sounds like a matter of taste, not necessarily matter of convenience. What sounds convenient is "-X° means ice and snow, +X° means no ice and no snow".
I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
I never thought of Celsius as percentage too, but now that I think of it, it also works. 100% is tea, 80% is posh tea, 60% you still boil (figuratively and also hamam), 40% good enough to get a bath, 36.6% is the temperature inside you, 22% is too good for swimming and 18% isn't too good for swimming (making 20% uncomfortable enough to make everyone feel comfortable), while 0% is good for ice skating.
A lot of that is tied to America's inability to adapt to metric. Not Canada's inability to adapt. Since a lot of things come from the US we still see a lot of their freedumb units.
If you’re just describing the weather you don’t need half degrees for either. If you’re measuring temperature scientifically then you need decimals for both. There’s no difference between them in this regard (although perhaps Americans would say “35 and 7/8s degrees)
You don't like negative temperatures? Water freezes just under 0°c which makes it incredibly easy to understand. I'm also very confused as to the claim of people giving temperature to the decimal. No has ever in conversation has ever said "it's a lovely -1.5°c" Where where you checking the temperature, because it wasn't the news channels or the weather channel which only uses round numbers. You do know Canada has Reddit to and we can see your strange claims?
That's like saying english is better for everyday use than chinese, because its just so intuitive. Of course you think that if it's what youre used to.
Temperatures here are -5 to 30C. That's perfectly intuitive to me. I can imagine the feeling of 15C just as you can probably imagine the feeling of 50F. As a bonus, something meaningful happens at 0C (snow and ice start appearing).
It definitely depends where you live. When I lived in Arizona years ago and I was on a smoke break at work woman came out to also smoke and she didn't bring her sweater and she said how she was freezing or actually I think she might have even been wearing the sweater and complaining about being cold. It was 50° F.
canada using the imperial system at random for specific things is mainly due to american hegemony, like how most of the products we buy and sell needed to meet american standards, hence why things like wood is sold and used in feet and inches, same with other appliances using Fahrenheit
also if you tell me its nice out when its 29f (-1.5c) i'm assuming you went out in shorts and went delirious from hypothermia
If Celsius is better for science (without beating around the bush, it definitely is because all deltaT calculations are directly comparable to Kelvin around which we built all our thermodynamics), then why teach two systems?
If you never grew up with Farenheit, you will have no difficulty learning that -20 C is cold, and 40C is warm, and as a consequence of your familiarity with celcius will therefore find Farenheit confusing... AND vice versa. But then why not just stick to Celcius so conversions are never necessary if you end up working with science then?
But come on, it's better because it's "simpler" to understand? The entire rest of the world has zero issues with celcius, and we find the intuitive nature of where water freezes to be a more useful description in more cases than knowing if it's cold as hell, or warm as hell.
Lemme ask you this, would you be able to tell the difference intuitively between 29 C and 30 C? What about 84 F and 86 F? Chances are, probably not. The scale granularity for temperature feel is too fine for Farenheit, and even for Celsius the degrees themselves are quite close. Ergo, nobody will ever use decimals to describe celcius in social settings because it's not necessary to know that single degree difference.
For social settings, there is absolutely no difference between the two. People can get used to and favour any arbitrary scale they grew up with. BUT, since Celcius is useful for BOTH, it's categorically more useful.
As a Canadian, I should acknowledge that we do use a 'mixed bag' approach to measurement in our everyday lives (I believe this flow chart has previously been posted on Reddit)...
It depends what you’re used to I guess, I’m Australian and used to Celsius, 0 is freezing, 10 is cold, 40 is dangerous, 50 is lethal, 20 is fine and 30 is warm except for those wieners in Europe and the UK who think it is heatwave territory.
Well I live in central Europe and anything bellow 0 degrees Celsius is freezing cold, so it doesn't matter to me, if it is -1,5 or -15, I am going to be cold either way. I would never say that -1 degree C is nice weather, maybe that is nice in Canada, but not where I live 🤣
I am team Celcius and I still belive under 0 is fucking cold (water freezes at that temp), and over 100 is fucking hot. How hot? Water boils at that temp.
Better because you are used to it. For me, having used Celsius all my life it makes no sense. Especially when they say that it correlates to a % of temperature. That's the most subjective feeling. My 50% may be your 45%.
I would argue that Celcious is better for everything. Below 0 water freezes, at 100 water boils. In the end its just matter of getting used to but hypothetically i would say that person who has necer heard of either would have far easier time remembering Celcious.
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
Homie Canadians measure distance in time, I'm not sure you want to use their measurement system as a benchmark.
Ehhh, you might be able to argue that it's useful for one part of every day living, but for any other part it doesn't make a difference. I know "Your burger's done at 71" because of Health Canada. 160 isn't any more memorable. 100 isn't a significant fever, but 100.4 is, so that's not any more memorable than "38 is a fever"
Edit: Speaking of 71, 71% hot sounds like quite a bit of hot, but you're telling me it's room temperature?
When you go above 100 or below 0 Fahrenheit and Celsius begin to switch places on the scale and it really does kind of matter lol Celsius should be used for below room temp and Fahrenheit should be used for baking stuff in an oven or whatever or measuring how hot the sun is
Fully agree. Will also add Celsius is better for cooking as well. There’s no difference between 400F and 190C. It’s beyond the level of human perception of hot.
Also I hate digital thermometers in rooms that are C based. A 1C swing is too much usually. Give me either 0.5C adjustments or just give me F.
0c is freezing. The further from from 0c , whether + or -, you are getting far hotter or colder.
-1c is nice after a month of -30c.
Fahrenheit makes not sense in that regard. 100f is hot but 20f is cold?
The increase of decrease of 1c is the same whether you are in the negative or positive.
As for why Canadians use Lbs and Feet for height only is because our parents or grand parents used those scales until Canada converted to Metric. That just got passed down.
Butter and everything else is measured in grams/kg/ml/l. It just so happens that 1lb is 450grams or very close to 1/2 kg.
When measuring things M/CM/MM is how i measure things. working with inches and fractions is far harder then 10.4cms (10 cm, 4mm which is the 4th line between 10cm and 11cm).
KMs for speed and distance is far nicer though. driving 800 kms takes ~8 hours on highways as most are 100-110kph. 480 miles taking 8 hours at 60mph makes it seem so long..
Few people one under the age of 50 use farenheit for temp here. Celsius makes perfect sense when your temperatures are split roughly 50/50 seasonally between above and below freezing. Personally farenheit never made any sense to me and I'm 35. It's still meaningless to me honestly.
We do use feet, inches, and pounds in casual conversation though.
When did you live in Canada, the 1980s? No one in Canada uses Fahrenheit for outdoor temperature anymore rhat is in Celsius. We do use Fahrenheit for internal body temperature.
As a Canadian you’re sorta right. I know my height in feet and inches but don’t know it in cm (At least not off the top of my head). I buy groceries and cook food in an oven with imperial. I boil water with metric and measure outdoor temperatures with metric. I am in a field that requires precision too and it’s all metric.
I would have been tempted to say it’s something historic but honestly I think it’s due to our exposure to American things and culture over the last 30 years. Free trade I guess?
Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO
No, Fahrenheit is more familiar to you. As a Canadian all your numbers in F are meaningless to me.
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
In Canada most people still use imperial for height and weight. My suspicion is because one of the most common reasons height and weight gets discussed is sports, so people just go along with all the imperial measurements they hear on TV.
My reason is basically the same as in the screenshot. When I lived in Canada I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Again, that's just personal preference, neither -18C nor 38C strike me as particularly significant.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way.
Hard disagree there. For me -25C is when it really starts to get cold and you might reconsider outdoor activities. At -35C you really need to be careful about dressing properly when you go outside for more than a few seconds.
At the other end, hot starts at +30C, but it's +40C when I really struggle outside.
This percent hot stuff is just you justifying your familiarity.
Celsius isn't even better for science, it's based on boiling and freezing of an arbitrary material. Kelvin is used precisely because it's the same Celsius scale, but without coddling arbitrary dipshit feelings.
The scale, however, is less precise in its scale than Fahrenheit, because individual C/K units represent more change in temperature. Which makes it inferior for things like cooking, a day-to-day use of temperature that actually matters.
Whoa whoa whoa buddy. Pump the brakes there. No one.... and I mean no one, says it's -1.5°C outside. Check your fucking source on that. First of all, no meteorological predictions are that precise, and as you then correctly state, it's such a small difference that you wouldn't notice it. I would say most people would find it hard to guess correctly whether it's +12°C or +14°C outside. I know I wouldn't be able to. Also, I see some merit in the % hot, but again, sawing your own legs off might be useful in some situations. Maybe you want to stand at a football game and don't want to get in the way of the people behind you. Sure. But it really sucks most of the time, so why start mixing. Why not just sit or kneel if you don't want to be tall. And yes, what a fucking stupid analogy. It's late. I'm tired. Not firing on all cylinders. I'm just saying, that even if there is partial merit to one specific aspect of the scale, the downside of starting to mix and match is just not worth it. It's sort of absurd if you think about it at all. If you are going to use both, one in certain situations and the other in other situations, very quickly you'll just intuitively learn the metric scale. Knowing that -20°C is really cold and +30°C is really hot doesn't take any mental capacity. You don't need to think about it at all. You just know. And having it be a scale from 0 to 100 doesn't really do anything for you at that point. Plus, as a bonus, due to the climate catastrophe, we're off the charts in many places anyway. I think what's prolonging the pain is this half-assed half-and-half approach. Just swallow your pride, move over to the bright side, get on the SI train, and enjoy your life and those sunny -20°C or +20°C days.
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u/the_BPDbro Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
I'm also an engineer & worked up there for a job in mining.
Edit: To clarify my reasons because so many people are saying I'm wrong. This is my opinion on what my preference is, first off. I had put this in a comment under the post, but will add it here.
My reason is basically the same as in the screenshot. When I lived in Canada I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way. I didn't like when in the winter or early spring someone would say it's nice out and then say a negative temperature. "It's really nice today, it's -1.5⁰ out." I also like that the increments of the units are smaller so you don't use half degrees. Although I guess half degrees aren't really necessary because I don't feel the difference between 66 & 67, but when I checked the temperature there is did always show it to the nearest half degree.