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Forums - General Discussion - Fact: Celsius is better than Fahrenheit

pokoko on 29 December 2017
HomokHarcos said:

I almost never like to state my opinions as facts. However my one exception is Celsius being better than Fahrenheit. I mean, who could think the opposite? 

Let's compare the basics. Celsius freezes at 0 and boils at 100. Fahrenheit freezes at 32 and boils at 212. Celsius is more logical.

Which is nothing, really.  They are both points on a scale.  The human brain can adjust easily.

The same can be said for the importance of centering a scale around water temperature.  It's just not really very important.

What IS more important to most people is precision, in which case the longer scale is more useful.



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Random_Matt on 29 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
Vini256 said:

I'd actually really like to know the logic behind putting the month before the day in some calendars (Like the US and Japanese ones). It looks confusing since Day -> Month -> Year is in crescent order (In terms of lenght of time) and it just makes a lot more sense to me.

The Japanese (Asian really) one makes total sense though. It's year-month-day. Goes from largest to smallest, which is in line with how we do time hour-minute-second. It just makes sense.

Doing it medium-small-large makes no sense at all though and I'm convinced the Americans started doing it that way just to be different from Europe

Like with everything almost.



Vini256 on 29 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:

The Japanese (Asian really) one makes total sense though. It's year-month-day. Goes from largest to smallest, which is in line with how we do time hour-minute-second. It just makes sense.

Doing it medium-small-large makes no sense at all though and I'm convinced the Americans started doing it that way just to be different from Europe

That's true, I completely forgot that in Asia they put the year first and then the rest, that makes total sense since it's just decrescent order instead of crescent.

@bold, The only possible explanation lol =P



Teeqoz on 29 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
Yeah but.... Kelvin is even better!

Yup. The way the universe works (physics) is dependent on temperature above absolute zero, not some arbitrary starting point like the freezing point of water at atmospheric pressure at sea level of the earth, nor the temperature of an equal mix of ice, water and ammonium chloride.



drkohler on 29 December 2017
pokoko said:

Which is nothing, really.  They are both points on a scale.

You should really read about how the various temperature scales were "invented".

One is based on reproducible science (Celsius), the other is based on happenstance. There is no scientific reason at all to clinge to something completely unscientific as the Fahrenheit scale. Then again, there still are people that think the thumb of a long dead king is a good measure unit...



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JRPGfan on 29 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
Yeah but.... Kelvin is even better!

I disagree.

For normal people 0 = water freezes, is much more usefull than 0 = absolute lowest temp possible.

K = °C + 273.15

Celcius is much more usefull for most people.

Its so easy to remember water boils at 100, and freezes at 0.



setsunatenshi on 29 December 2017
pokoko said:
HomokHarcos said:

I almost never like to state my opinions as facts. However my one exception is Celsius being better than Fahrenheit. I mean, who could think the opposite? 

Let's compare the basics. Celsius freezes at 0 and boils at 100. Fahrenheit freezes at 32 and boils at 212. Celsius is more logical.

Which is nothing, really.  They are both points on a scale.  The human brain can adjust easily.

The same can be said for the importance of centering a scale around water temperature.  It's just not really very important.

What IS more important to most people is precision, in which case the longer scale is more useful.

of course it's a scale... the point is simplicity. a smaller scale will always be more easily grasped by human minds.

 

plus the boiling and freezing point of water is of extreme importance to real life, from cooking to knowing when there's a risk of frozen pavement while driving.



JRPGfan on 29 December 2017
Vini256 said:

DD/MM/YY makes way more sense than MM/DD/YY, I always mix up the dates when looking at the latter.

^ this too.

Going from small -> big makes more sense imo.



pokoko on 29 December 2017
drkohler said:
pokoko said:

Which is nothing, really.  They are both points on a scale.

You should really read about how the various temperature scales were "invented".

One is based on reproducible science (Celsius), the other is based on happenstance. There is no scientific reason at all to clinge to something completely unscientific as the Fahrenheit scale. Then again, there still are people that think the thumb of a long dead king is a good measure unit...

I know how they were invented and that it doesn't really matter.  One is set based on water temperature?  Okay.  Insert shrug here.  It's still an artificial scale where freezing is exactly 0 and boiling is exactly 100.  



JRPGfan on 29 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
JRPGfan said:

I disagree.

For normal people 0 = water freezes, is much more usefull than 0 = absolute lowest temp possible.

K = °C + 273.15

Celcius is much more usefull for most people.

Its so easy to remember water boils at 100, and freezes at 0.

It's no more useful, easier perhaps since that is what people are used to, but not more useful. If people were taught Kelvin as standard then they'd be able to use and understand it just as well, and it would mean no need for negative numbers. Using negative temperatures just seems strange.

Easier to remember = more usefull.

In everyday instances, easy to remember numbers, you ll need alot, are much more usefull than not.

So no, kelvin isnt nearly as usefull.