Fahrenheit is demonstrably better for describing temperature as experienced by a human.
I used to say this exact thing. I decided to be scientific about it and test it by learning Celsius and trying it for a few months.
I have not gone back. It has been seven years. All my devices are still reporting Celsius to me.
I was enjoying the process just because of the novelty of learning a new temperature scale, but when I experienced my first winter with Celsius I knew I’d never go back.
0 being freezing is so much more useful than you’d think. 23°F doesn’t really mean anything to me, but -5°C means “as far below freezing as 5°C is above freezing.” It inherently provides context without having to do math.
Also, the degrees being “larger” makes them more meaningful and thus easier to learn.
If you want to try what I did, here are some useful steps. First, this rhyme: “30 is hot, 20 is nice, 10 is chilly, 0 is ice.”
More importantly, here’s the heuristic I came up with: memorize the 10s. So 10°C = 50°F, 20°C = 68°F, 30°C = 86°F (easy to remember 68 and 86 because they’re reversed). Then memorize the 5s. You can always find them because they’re 9°F off from the 10s. 25°C = 77°F for example.
Once you have those points memorized, you can go up and down from them using 2°F per 1°C. It’s really 1.8, but since at most you’ll be 2°C away from a certain value, the most you’ll ever be off is 0.4°F. So if the weather app tells you it’s 22°C, you start at 68°F and add 4 to get to 72°F (it is actually 71.6 but who cares?). If it says 23°C, you start at 77°F and subtract 4 to get 73°F (actually 73.4, but again who cares?).
I used this heuristic until I didn’t really need it anymore. I still use it if someone asks me the temperature, because I live in the US and no one knows Celsius. So I quickly convert and give them their Fahrenheit value. But at this point I don’t really need to do so personally.
And like I said, I much prefer Celsius even for describing weather. It has really taught me how arbitrary both scales are. A co-worker of mine said, “Yeah but 100° sounds hot.” I replied, “The first time a colleague in India told me it was 40° outside, that sounded hot.” I didn’t need to convert it (didn’t bother memorizing that value because I never see it where I live), it just sounded hot because I knew the scale. (It’s 104°F for the record.)
But as I touched on, I was shocked by how much the freezing point being zero mattered. It makes sub-freezing temperature values so useful. I hadn’t expected that, growing up I knew 32°F was freezing and was so used to that nonsense that I didn’t realize what I was missing until I experienced it.
Regarding what “sounds” hot, I think 100 makes more sense as the “super hot” number than 40. Although both numbers are arbitrary, 100 is less arbitrary. (Sorta. We just culturally define 100 to be an important number) Fahrenheit makes more sense if you think of it as “0 feels super cold, 100 feels super hot” although I’ll admit it’s a little strange that room temperature is 3/4s up the scale. That could be solves with a logarithmic scale, but that would probably be worse than either system.
I never used F, but as a discalculic person, i am glad i don’t have because it’s harder to memorize, while C is just
“Uuh 0 is ice, 100 is boiling water” and i don’t need to remember anything crazy or do any math
Considering the inconsequential nature of small talk, “Well, water isn’t boiling, but it isn’t freezing either” should be an acceptable answer to “how’s the weather where you are?”.
Go ahead and try. You don’t dare. This town ain’t big enough for the two of us. The talk can only get so small. My auto-skimmer won’t allow it. It’s against my religion. A fortune cookie I got advised against it. The letter ‘j’ is broken on your keyboard. The SpaceTime continuum is broken so ‘next time’ was actually ‘last time.’ The use of /j has fallen out of popular discourse. It doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s time for your nap.
I tried the same thing, found c to be dog shit for describing air temperature. So after a year I went back. Wild how personal experience can vary so much!
You said a lot of words to basically say fuck all that matters.
It’s personal preference. F is objectively more fine of a scale compared to C. Which can be arguably more useful for air temp. But it’s also arguable that the extra resolution is unneeded since you can’t really tell the difference to that degree.
Frankly both C and F are both equally beyond absolute fucking dogshit for telling how nice or bad the weather is since the quality of the weather needs more things then JUST temp to have a even remotely decent idea of what it’s like outside.
We all just kinda assume the rest based on lived experience of the area we are actively in when talking about it day to day.
But for example 30c in iowa vs California vs florida are LITERALLY nothing alike. At fucking all.
30c in Germany and 30c Colorado are nothing alike.
Humidity, altitude, cloud coverage, wind, and other factors play such a major part of of quality of the weather that arguing over the scale you use is fucking pointless.
Edit: Oh a Rain Man reference? Are…you implying that I’m autistic because I shared a heuristic? And that somehow that’s a bad thing, which is of course the implication?
I used to say this exact thing. I decided to be scientific about it and test it by learning Celsius and trying it for a few months.
I have not gone back. It has been seven years. All my devices are still reporting Celsius to me.
I was enjoying the process just because of the novelty of learning a new temperature scale, but when I experienced my first winter with Celsius I knew I’d never go back.
0 being freezing is so much more useful than you’d think. 23°F doesn’t really mean anything to me, but -5°C means “as far below freezing as 5°C is above freezing.” It inherently provides context without having to do math.
Also, the degrees being “larger” makes them more meaningful and thus easier to learn.
If you want to try what I did, here are some useful steps. First, this rhyme: “30 is hot, 20 is nice, 10 is chilly, 0 is ice.”
More importantly, here’s the heuristic I came up with: memorize the 10s. So 10°C = 50°F, 20°C = 68°F, 30°C = 86°F (easy to remember 68 and 86 because they’re reversed). Then memorize the 5s. You can always find them because they’re 9°F off from the 10s. 25°C = 77°F for example.
Once you have those points memorized, you can go up and down from them using 2°F per 1°C. It’s really 1.8, but since at most you’ll be 2°C away from a certain value, the most you’ll ever be off is 0.4°F. So if the weather app tells you it’s 22°C, you start at 68°F and add 4 to get to 72°F (it is actually 71.6 but who cares?). If it says 23°C, you start at 77°F and subtract 4 to get 73°F (actually 73.4, but again who cares?).
I used this heuristic until I didn’t really need it anymore. I still use it if someone asks me the temperature, because I live in the US and no one knows Celsius. So I quickly convert and give them their Fahrenheit value. But at this point I don’t really need to do so personally.
And like I said, I much prefer Celsius even for describing weather. It has really taught me how arbitrary both scales are. A co-worker of mine said, “Yeah but 100° sounds hot.” I replied, “The first time a colleague in India told me it was 40° outside, that sounded hot.” I didn’t need to convert it (didn’t bother memorizing that value because I never see it where I live), it just sounded hot because I knew the scale. (It’s 104°F for the record.)
But as I touched on, I was shocked by how much the freezing point being zero mattered. It makes sub-freezing temperature values so useful. I hadn’t expected that, growing up I knew 32°F was freezing and was so used to that nonsense that I didn’t realize what I was missing until I experienced it.
Regarding what “sounds” hot, I think 100 makes more sense as the “super hot” number than 40. Although both numbers are arbitrary, 100 is less arbitrary. (Sorta. We just culturally define 100 to be an important number) Fahrenheit makes more sense if you think of it as “0 feels super cold, 100 feels super hot” although I’ll admit it’s a little strange that room temperature is 3/4s up the scale. That could be solves with a logarithmic scale, but that would probably be worse than either system.
Eh, I have lived with both Celsius and Fahrenheit and I far prefer Fahrenheit.
Same, it’s also nice because I really don’t notice 1 degree F, but 1 C feels meaningful
I never used F, but as a discalculic person, i am glad i don’t have because it’s harder to memorize, while C is just “Uuh 0 is ice, 100 is boiling water” and i don’t need to remember anything crazy or do any math
Considering the inconsequential nature of small talk, “Well, water isn’t boiling, but it isn’t freezing either” should be an acceptable answer to “how’s the weather where you are?”.
I don’t see your point, anyway, you are rather bold to assume i do small talks
Brain too small to do any talks, really. We’re all fortunate their auto-replier posts anything on their behalf.
I guess i gotta add /j next time
Go ahead and try. You don’t dare. This town ain’t big enough for the two of us. The talk can only get so small. My auto-skimmer won’t allow it. It’s against my religion. A fortune cookie I got advised against it. The letter ‘j’ is broken on your keyboard. The SpaceTime continuum is broken so ‘next time’ was actually ‘last time.’ The use of /j has fallen out of popular discourse. It doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s time for your nap.
I tried the same thing, found c to be dog shit for describing air temperature. So after a year I went back. Wild how personal experience can vary so much!
You said a lot of words to basically say fuck all that matters.
It’s personal preference. F is objectively more fine of a scale compared to C. Which can be arguably more useful for air temp. But it’s also arguable that the extra resolution is unneeded since you can’t really tell the difference to that degree.
Frankly both C and F are both equally beyond absolute fucking dogshit for telling how nice or bad the weather is since the quality of the weather needs more things then JUST temp to have a even remotely decent idea of what it’s like outside.
We all just kinda assume the rest based on lived experience of the area we are actively in when talking about it day to day.
But for example 30c in iowa vs California vs florida are LITERALLY nothing alike. At fucking all.
30c in Germany and 30c Colorado are nothing alike.
Humidity, altitude, cloud coverage, wind, and other factors play such a major part of of quality of the weather that arguing over the scale you use is fucking pointless.
Gotta watch Wapner.
What?
Edit: Oh a Rain Man reference? Are…you implying that I’m autistic because I shared a heuristic? And that somehow that’s a bad thing, which is of course the implication?
Do you know what service you’re using right now?