this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 259 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Tell me that you are American without telling me you are American

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[–] uienia@lemmy.world 212 points 9 months ago (44 children)

Americans always regurgite the "Fahrenheit is how people feel" nonsense, but it is just that: nonsense. Americans are familiar with fahrenheit so they think that it is more inituitive than other systems, but unsurprisingly people who are used to celsius have no problems using it to measure "how people feel" and will think it is a very inituitive system.

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 91 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (31 children)

Can confirm. Moved from the US to Canada and maybe a year of using Celcius revealed to me just how fucking stupid and convoluted Fahrenheit is. My dad spent three weeks out here and started using Celcius on his phone. Now I only use Fahrenheit when dealing with fevers or temping cases of suspiciously overripe produce.

Fellow Americans. Celcius is superior and more intuitive for those who take a moment to adjust to it. It is okay to accept this as fact without developing an inferiority complex. USA not always #1. USA quite often not #1 and that is okay. It is okay for USA to not be #1 without developing an inferiority complex.

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 27 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Both are equally arbitrary. You just have to know a handful of temperatures that you use in your day to day life either way.

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[–] EnderofGames@sh.itjust.works 123 points 9 months ago (139 children)

Nah, it doesn't make any sense, and isn't deep or insightful at all.

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[–] invisiblegorilla@sh.itjust.works 82 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 25 points 9 months ago

All my homies hate fahrenheit.

[–] eldain@feddit.nl 78 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Kelvin is for scientists.

Celsius is for people.

Fahrenheit is a translation layer between Celsius and Americans. All their weather stations have been Celsius for ages, it's a societal decision to use an arbitrary unit instead. The "69F censoring" which turned out to be a rounding artefact illustrated that nicely. Their government could change that, power to them that they decide not to 🤷‍♂️

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

fahrenheit is literally defined by celsius at this point, afaik celsius is literally the official standard of the united states but everyone just.. keeps using fahrenheit anyways

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[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 63 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Reading these comments, my spiteful genie wish is to invent and proliferate a log base 10 scale, something like earthquake magnitudes or decibels. Y'all hate F or C? Welcome T, where 1 equals 1 Kelvin, 2 equals 10 Kelvin, 3 equals 100 Kelvin, 4 equals 1000 Kelvin, and so on.

It's easy! Humans live somewhere around 3, as does boiling and freezing, while the sun is between a 4 and a 5 at the surface and the core is closer to an 8.

[–] Hagdos@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Make it log, but not start at absolute zero anyway

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[–] Shurimal@kbin.social 48 points 9 months ago (9 children)

With Celsius it's all nice and round numbers unlike the mess called fahrenheit:

0°C—black ice, snow, be careful on the road and you probably want to wear gloves and a hat
0...10°C—a bit chilly, but you can leave your hat home
10...20°C—pleasant, but not quite tee-and-shorts yet
20...30°C—nice summer weather
30...40°C—holy crap it's hot!
40...50°C—are you fucking kidding me?
50+°C—my proteins are starting to denature...
100°C—good sauna
110°C—finns think it's a good sauna
120+°C—finns think it's getting a bit too hot in the sauna. Italians tend to vaporize in sauna (speaking from experience)
...
0...-10°C—a pleasant winter weather
-10...-20°C—getting a bit frosty
-20...-30°C—finns think it's a pleasant winter weather
-40°C—vodka freezes. Russians and finns agree it's getting a bit frosty
-50°C—getting a little hard to start your Uazik in the morning in Siberia due to engine oil solidifying
-60°C—researchers in Antarctica all agree it's getting a bit frosty and someone should close the window

[–] Adam1@lemmy.world 28 points 9 months ago

-60c - Canadians consider putting on a hoodie

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[–] getaway@lemmynsfw.com 48 points 9 months ago (6 children)

If fahrenheit was how people felt, then room temperature would be 0 because that's the ideal temperature. Negative fahrenheit would be too cold, positive to warm.

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Celsius can be used in place of all three, the others cannot.

The freezing point of water is also a great place to zero the scale.

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[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 39 points 9 months ago

But it doesn't really make sense, it's just some nonsense that sounds clever

[–] Filthmontane@lemmy.world 38 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Fahrenheit isn't how people feel, it's how brine solutions feel.

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[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 37 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius is quite easy. All you need to do is:

import math
import random
import time

def obtain_temperature_scale():
    temperature_scales = ["Fahrenheit", "Celsius", "Kelvin", "Rankine", "Réaumur", "Newton", "Delisle", "Rømer"]
    return random.choice(temperature_scales)

def create_cryptic_prompts():
    cryptic_prompts = [
        "Unveil the hidden truth within the scorching embers.",
        "Decode the whispers of the arctic winds.",
        "Unravel the enigma of thermal equilibrium.",
        "Unlock the secrets of the thermometric realm."
    ]
    return random.choice(cryptic_prompts)

def await_user_input(prompt):
    print(prompt)
    return float(input("Enter the temperature value: "))

def dramatic_pause():
    print("Calculating...")
    time.sleep(random.uniform(1.5, 3.5))

def convert_to_celsius(fahrenheit):
    return (fahrenheit - 32) * (5/9)

def main():
    temperature_scale = obtain_temperature_scale()
    if temperature_scale == "Fahrenheit":
        cryptic_prompt = create_cryptic_prompts()
        fahrenheit_temp = await_user_input(cryptic_prompt)
        dramatic_pause()
        celsius_temp = convert_to_celsius(fahrenheit_temp)
        print(f"The temperature in Celsius is: {celsius_temp:.2f}°C")
    else:
        print("This program only accepts Fahrenheit temperatures.")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
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[–] amio@kbin.social 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

How very American.

I suppose it is how people feel, just, y'know, the roughly 4-5% of people who happen to already use that temperature scale. Shocker, that.

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[–] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 31 points 9 months ago

The thing about Fahrenheit is kinda wrong. 0 is when salt water freezes, and 100 was supposedly measured by a woman's body temperature when she was sick.

[–] Tango@lemmy.ml 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)
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[–] Squirrel@thelemmy.club 27 points 9 months ago (15 children)

Most people are inherently biased towards their chosen system. A "water scale" doesn't make sense to fahrenheit users, and a "human scale" is dismissed as even existing by the Celsius users. But hey, if you want to fight, have at it. It's annoying and pointless, but that's what the internet is for.

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[–] SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How can you manage to spell Fahrenheit right but Celsius wrong?

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