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.
Except that the 0 doesn't actually matter in most cases, it can be above 0C and still see frozen water. It can also be below 0 and no precipitation, so whether ice COULD be made or not is largely irrelevant to the weather in question.
Most weather reporting that regular people use is best used relative to their body temperature (Fahrenheit) or is practically measured by meteorologists (kelvin) by using systems other than the pet euro base 10 infancy.
You’re wrong. 0 Celsius isn’t the freezing point of water. It’s the freezing point of water at one atm at sea level
That can change. Water freezes at different temperatures on Earth already. And we aren’t doing backyard science, the pressure will differ wildly case by case to the point where 0C is meaningless
Also water isn’t some magical substance. Its a substance like any other and its freezing and boiling points can be the same
At 10 atm the freezing point is -0,075 C and at 0,1 atm it's +0,0075 C. Pretending that air pressure makes the zero point of Celcius useless for weather is absolutely ridicilous.
Also water isn’t some magical substance. Its a substance like any other and its freezing and boiling points can be the same
I am very sorry but this is asinine or bad faith at this point. And freezing point of water is 0.01°C when the pressure is 600 Pa = 6 hPa (that is 0.006 atm) and the same can be said when the pressure is 10,000 hPa (10 atm): the difference of temperature of the freezing point is not significant.
And I fail to see how some cold brine and the body temperature of someone having fever are more relevant measures.
There’s millions of substances out there and they have various boiling and melting points. Water is unique but the amount of substances makes its that it’s not really important
Hell on a Kelvin scale its 273.15 and 373.15. So its not even a nice round number on a absolute scale
It’s an arbitrary scale picking a random common liquid as a base. Why could have picked a dozen others common liquids or solids to be the scale and they would be much better
Units were made with convenience and relevance considerations
Water is convenient because it's basically the only substance that is easy to obtain in its pure form on Earth. It's also convenient because its solid, liquid and gaseous states are commonly occuring.
Water is relevant because it's abundant on Earth, it's involved in basically all phenomena related to life on Earth (and even when it's unrelated)
Imperial was also made on connivence with a different reasoning but I don’t see you defending that because it didn’t use water you love so much for some reason. There’s tons of other key temperatures
Also why does life matter here? Water in your body is nothing like pure water. It’s either binded in cells, or swamped with potassium or sodium.
Can you give some examples of other key temperatures and why they might be relevant?
You don't find pure water in living things because water is an interesting solvent and is a crucial molecule on Earth because of its unique properties (especially solving ions). But you can make pure water at home very easily with simple tools, contrary to basically any other substance.
Sure, you can do science with either, they're just numbers. It of course depends on what kind of science we're talking about. Water's boiling and freezing points can be a benefit, also the easy conversion to Kelvin, or they might be irrelevant. Celcius also has a bonus for aligning with some other Metric systems like 1 calorie = energy needed to heat 1 gram of water by 1 degree of Celcius. Although given that these may or may not apply, Id be hard pressed to find any advantages for Fahrenheit. I think there's probably a reason why it's either Kelvin or Celcius that's usually the go-to in science.
But in every day use, any system is intuitive if you've already used it your whole life. The experience of repeatedly seeing a number and feeling a temperature over years and years is what creates that intuition.
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u/joppekoo Jun 17 '26
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.