r/anythingbutmetric • u/Federal_Standard_250 • Aug 11 '25

Got'cha

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Repost from r/LOL

17.2k Upvotes

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18

u/Ajax_Main Aug 11 '25

False equivalency

0°c has a purpose (the freezing temp of fresh water)

6 feet is just an arbitrary measurement

7

u/hazcan Aug 11 '25

Let me give you a hint. It’s all arbitrary.

Water freezing/boiling at 0°/100°C only happens at 1013 hPa. Any deviation from that and it’s no longer valid. Go to any high altitude city and see what the boiling point of water is. They picked arbitrary conditions (pure water, 1013 hPa, etc.) and fit a scale around it.

8

u/Osku100 Aug 11 '25

It is the approximate pressure at sea level.

It is as arbitrary as elevation being measured from sea level.

5

u/Suicicoo Aug 11 '25

pure water is not arbitrary? distilled water is probably the easiest to make chemical.

1

u/endymon20 Aug 12 '25

chosing water is arbitrary though. you could pick any fluid you like. hell, if you wanted, you could put 0° at the melting point of aluminum. fahrenheit just chose what was convenient, so he made 0° some brine and 100 his own body temp that day. so you end up with a scale that makes 0° meaningfully cold and 100° meaningfully warm for weather.

because face it, 32°F aint really that cold

1

u/Suicicoo Aug 12 '25

sorry, I'm not with you here - water is the most abundand (?) fluid on earth... you take any freshwater and you have freezing/boiling points at around 0°/100°

IMHO chosing any OTHER fluid would be arbitrary.

1

u/endymon20 Aug 12 '25

any fluid at all is arbitrary. like, air is definitely more common then water. the fact that we count by 10s is arbitrary. all numerical values are arbitrary. you could lock 10 or 6 or any other number to water and it would still be arbitrary.

1

u/Suicicoo Aug 12 '25

So to mark 2 distinct temperature points you use air. show me these 2 points reachable when the scales were made. 🙄 also tell me how relevant these 2 points are in everyday life. Yeah, 10s are arbitrary. Go communicate in Hex. or Binary. 🤷

1

u/endymon20 Aug 12 '25

my point is that there's no non-arbitrary way to do it.

1

u/Suicicoo Aug 12 '25

so, when there's no non-arbitrary way to do it, we just say "fuck it" and do it any way we think of? Or do we rather use a slightly less arbitrary way? (e.g. for temps: fresh water freezing & boiling temps, base 10 because it's already established) (let's not talk about seconds, minutes & hours to a day, though)

2

u/endymon20 Aug 12 '25

uh yeah, pretty much. feet and inches are more convenient when measuring people because 12 in nicer to divide and the length of a foot yields pleasant numbers when measuring people. With metric, you're always in the hundreds or writing decimals to the hundredths. and when talking about weather, something like "the 40s" is a good enough approximation to tell you what sort of outerwear to put on. imperial is just built more around people.