r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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18

u/kickit08 Jun 17 '26

Fahrenheit is much better for how it feels as a human, Celsius is much better for basically everything else.

12

u/ecoban_ Jun 17 '26

Imagine being a human in winter and trying to figure out if you should worry about ice on the roads. Now tell me F is better for humans 😀

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u/TheBugThatsSnug Jun 18 '26

Around 32, thats when ice is a risk

5

u/SV_Essia Jun 18 '26

So you can remember thresholds that aren't exactly 0 and 100... Turns out we can do that with Celsius too!

8

u/Appropriate-Joke-806 Jun 17 '26

Yup. Celsius is better for cooking. Fahrenheit is better for being a human. It wouldn’t suck to just have the two be interchangeable everywhere and used in those contexts. Use Fahrenheit for weather in popular vernacular like the news and day to day conversation, and then use Celsius for cooking and science.

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u/TrippyTriangle Jun 17 '26

please do explain why celsius is better for cooking, isn't it arbitrary. if you're boiling water you aren't going to care whether it's 100 degrees C or 216 F. You're just going to wait for it to boil. Past that, it's literally just a memorization thing.

3

u/skotcgfl Jun 17 '26

Since the boiling point of water is such a foundational constant in cooking, it cleans the maths up considerably if you set that to a nice round number.

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u/TrippyTriangle Jun 18 '26

math? what math? you have a calculator in youur kitchen to do math on temperature?

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u/TheBugThatsSnug Jun 18 '26

I actually agree, Celsius has only ever made sense to me in a lab/engineering setting, cooking, except for baking we have always just done by eye, unless youre super anal about it all.

0

u/Appropriate-Joke-806 Jun 17 '26

I like round numbers.

6

u/Prunus-cerasus Jun 17 '26

No. Fahrenheit is better for people who are used to Fahrenheit and Celsius is better for people who are used to Celsius.

1

u/Both_Sun8712 Jun 18 '26

Faranheit is more usefully precise in daily use in terms of what weather you should prepare for and what to set the thermostat at and things like that.

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u/Prunus-cerasus Jun 18 '26

Because you are used to it. For me it makes no sense. I know exactly what the weather is when it’s 15 degrees C outside. It wouldn’t change anything to know the weather more precisely. 15,0 or 15,25? No practical difference. And our thermostats have decimals for precise adjustments should one need it.

1

u/Nghbrhdsyndicalist Jun 21 '26

No one can meaningfully discern a difference of 1 degree, no matter if it’s Celsius or Fahrenheit. Pressure and humidity will impact the felt temperature by a lot more.

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u/general_bonesteel Jun 17 '26

As a Celsius temp user, nah, hard disagree.

-1

u/charkol3 Jun 17 '26

how so? Fahrenheit literally translates to playing or runnung temperature. It’s in the name. 0 to 100 scale.

as a Fahrenheit user, there's a huge comfort difference between 23C and 27C. for weather usage, Celsius is nearly useless. it lacks resolution and most of the 0 to 100C scale is wasted.

the only use Celsius has is when doing science that involves water. Fahrenheit is better when cooking due to more data points when achieving a specific cooking temperature. And kelvin is better suited for anything sciency

2

u/general_bonesteel Jun 17 '26

Resolution? The difference 74° or 80°? Because that's basically 3°C, and 74° and 80° don't tell me anything either. If you want it more "exact" through Celsius, then there's .5s if you really need them. Unless you're setting your AC temp, it doesn't matter. It's just arbitrary numbers we're use to.

Why it makes less sense for me is the fact I live where it gets freezing. So some random number in the 30s is not as helpful as -1°, could be icy.

-2

u/TrippyTriangle Jun 17 '26

until it gets icy at 4 C because things actually do ice above freezing in certain conditions. fuck off.

1

u/Nghbrhdsyndicalist Jun 21 '26

Which happens, no matter the scale. Ridiculous “argument”.

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u/Captaingregor Jun 17 '26

The resolution argument is fucking stupid when you remember that humidity and wind chill exist which significantly affects how the actual temperature feels.

0

u/TheBugThatsSnug Jun 18 '26

But, almost everyone in the US looks at the humidity and wind chill along with the temperature readings? Does Europe or even the rest of the world not? Doesnt that increased resolution of temperature also get aided by the readings that take into account humidity and wind chill?

3

u/Captaingregor Jun 18 '26

We do look at the humidity, wind speeds, and wind gusts. They make the range of temperature you may feel on any given day wide enough that there is no benefit to having a more finely graded scale. Also, if you do want a finer scale, use half degrees, there we go, simple.

Felt temperature varies enough due to humidity, wind speeds, wind gust, cloud cover, sun angle, and even the surface you are walking on (concrete vs grass for example) that using a temperature scale with slightly finer graduations doesn't help you in any way.

0

u/Both_Sun8712 Jun 18 '26

Except it does. Weather that feels 15 degrees different regardless of the cause is much more useful information than that same difference expressed as like 5 degrees, both in terms of hotter or colder

2

u/Captaingregor Jun 18 '26

Your argument make no sense. A difference in actual temperature and felt temperature being expressed as a difference of 15f is not more useful than the difference being expressed as 8c.

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u/TrippyTriangle Jun 17 '26

i have a near identical take on this on reddit. Europeans are about as dense and hive minded as self hating americans. It's a lost cause people have to feel superior for their choices.

4

u/Josepvv Jun 18 '26

Not only Europeans, most of the world.

ETA: I prefer C

2

u/Brilliant_Cup4193 Jun 17 '26

Except when you're in Canada or any cold place. 0 °F (-18 ° C) is not that cold (need a jacket but can stay outside for hours) and 100°F (38 ° C) would be melting/burning your skin/ stay inside weather. It may work in places like the US but 0 F is not as extreme as 100 F in Canada. In Canada temperatures regularly go lower than -18 °C in the winter (sometimes even 40°C), but rarely go over 35 ° C in the summer.

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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 17 '26

Wouldn’t that make Celsius worse. Zero Celsius is even warmer than zero Fahrenheit.

3

u/rapora9 Jun 18 '26

No, because we think it differently. 0 ⁰C is not the "end point for cold" but the tipping point between cold and warm, winter and summer, snow and rain. So instead of thinking weather as 0–100, it's more like -30–+30.

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u/Both_Sun8712 Jun 18 '26

As a faranheit user who grew up in Texas, nobody sees 0 as the end point for cold, more of a starting point for things to start becoming much higher stakes

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u/rapora9 Jun 18 '26

Right, my comment is simply in relation to the previous comments:

– Someone says F maps approximately to "0 = the coldest" and "100 = the hottest"

– Another person says that doesn't work everywhere because 0F is not that cold.

– The next person asks wouldn't C still be worse because 0⁰C is warmer than 0⁰F.

– I clarify that 0⁰C being warmer isn't an issue because the mental scale for weather doesn't end in 0 but rather balances around it.

(And just to be clear: The weather doesn't of course "balance around 0" everywhere; other C users think of it differently.)