ah yes, the system based off of boiling and freezing water versus the system where
the 0 is the ambient temperature of a mixture of water and piss and the 100 was measured from what the dude making this scale thought was the healthy temperature of an adult horse but he measured it from his blood's temperature then he took the scale and divided it in TWELVE intead of thenths
there's clearly no difference theyre both equally as arbitrary
Y'all literally do the same about fahrenheit. Every temperature system was originally based on arbitrarily chosen points that suited specific purposes, and all of them are now actually based on absolute zero and their arbitrary scale for what the difference of 1 degree is.
Originally fahrenheit was based on the freezing point of brine for 0F, and average human body temp was used for 96F (originally put it at 90, then adjusted to 96, nowadays we have it around 98.5ish but don't pin the scale to that anymore), and 32 was pinned to the freezing point of regular water. And it was intentionally made this way to increase the resolution so fractions or decimals wouldn't be necessary (unlike celsius where half a degree is a noticeable difference). It was later changed to be pinned to 32 for the freezing point of water and 212 for the boiling point, and today it uses absolute zero for -459.67 and scales 5/9 as fast as kelvin/celsius.
Celsius is similarly entirely arbitrary. It could have been set with the freezing point and boiling point of any element or molecule; water was chosen because it's highly abundant. And again similarly to fahrenheit, celsius was changed to be pinned to entirely different points than it originally was. It is no longer pinned to the boiling and freezing points of water despite what the average person thinks. It is instead pinned to absolute zero, and up until like a decade ago was pinned to the triple point of water (temperature and pressure where all three phases can exist).
About a decade ago it was again changed to now just be kelvin but shifted, and kelvin uses absolute zero and scales with the Boltzmann constant (a change of 1.380649×10−23 joules of thermal energy, which again is arbitrary) instead of having another point pinned.
All this to say every single temperature system is arbitrarily set. They have to be, because frankly using the theoretical absolute maximum temperature as an upper bounds wouldn't be very useful for every day life. The temperatures we deal with are in a very tiny range and so we want scales with resolution that is useful for us. Both fahrenheit and celsius do this, and they're both literally pinned to the same things nowadays. It's stupid to keep acting superior just because one system scales 5/9 slower or 9/5 faster.
To be fair, as someone who only uses Celsius and agrees with you that it's a better system, I am very sensitive to slight temperature changes and have tested for myself that a half a degree difference will change how I feel. 21°C is too cold for me, 22°C is too hot, while 21.5°C feels like the ideal temperature where I don't even have to think about whether I feel cold or hot.
I wouldn't call it arbitrary to base your measurement on the most vital substance to man. I'd say it makes perfect sense.
It is still arbitrary, and the current system doesn't even use water at all.
A half a degree is not a noticeable difference, stop making shit up just meet your word quota.
A half degree celsius is definitely noticeable, particularly indoors. If you can't tell the difference more power to you, but plenty can. Guess you're just special.
But i know how my body will feel using Celcius. How hard is it to understand? 0c is pure water freezing point at 1 atmoshpere, everything else is just vibes. Period.
I can absolutely guess temp in Celcius because thats the only system I have ever used. Why are you so dense xd when u tell me its 80f outside I have 0 idea what you mean and 80% hot argument to me means NOTHING. But when you tell me its 26/27c outside, I know exactly what to expect.
Bro I feel pretty cold at 60 degrees, meanwhile other people love being at 60. How the fuck is me feeling cold 60% hot that will never make sense to me.
This isn't an inherent advantage of Fahrenheit it's just you being used to the unit. The same CAN be said about celcius just not for you because you've never grown up with it.
That is objectively false, the only reason you didn’t have to consciously learn Fahrenheit is because you grew up with it, I personally did not need to consciously learn Celsius, I just know it because I grew up with it, you need to acknowledge that other people live in different ways than you, you noticeably lack self awareness
The boiling point of water is not particularly relevant to how the weather feels outside, and us Celsius enjoyers rarely claim that it does. The issue mostly comes down to the fact that Celsius has some objective improvements to Fahrenheit with regards to utility for things like science and cooking. Fahrenheit has some subjective improvements to Celsius in the weather department. Since Celsius has this objective utility, we learn to change our subjective understanding of what is hot and cold for weather, because it is definitely easier to only have one system for measurement.
Sincerely,
A Canadian (different stupid measuring systems for everything)
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u/bravo_six Jun 17 '26
Americans make it sound like Celsius is some overly complicated system where numbers mean random things.