Remembering that water freezes and boils and 32 degree and 212 degree is harder then remembering that it boils at 0 and 100.
The temperature at which water freezes and boils just seems like such an arbitrary thing to go off of.
The great thing about those numbers is that they are objective references points. Fahrenheit defined temperature by referring to the ‘average human body temperature’ which isn’t a physical constant in the same sense as boiling temperature of water.
Today the Fahrenheit scale is also defined over when water freezes and boils but at 32 degree and 212 degree. The difference is a clear 180 which is a round number if you think in base 60, but thinking in base 10 is a lot easier than thinking in base 60.
Whether or not water freezes has a lot of effects on the weather. When deciding whether to walk about a frozen lake the amount of days that the weather was below 0 matters. For gardering it matters whether the soil freezes.
I can’t remember a use case where I would have wanted more granularity in my temperature scale then Celsius provides. When making sure that tea I drink is at 55 degree Celsius I would however need three digits to represent the temperature.
Better compatibility with other SI units also matters.
Whether or not water freezes has a lot of effects on the weather. When deciding whether to walk about a frozen lake the amount of days that the weather was below 0 matters. For gardering it matters whether the soil freezes.
This is a good point; using 0 as a reference point for freezing, which does have real life applications (is it going to snow? will this morning’s rain cause icy roads? etc.) is much less arbitrary than how it’s used on the Fahrenheit scale. I suppose boiling has cooking applications as well?
The granularity point is interesting; in the US, setting a building’s thermostat to 68 degrees Fahrenheit vs. 66 degrees Fahrenheit is typically considered a pretty non-arbitrary decision as far as saving money vs. gaining comfort goes. Now that I actually stop and think about it though, if you asked me to guess what temperature a building I’m currently in’s thermostat was set at, I’m not sure I’d actually be able to tell you.
In fact, I’m not sure I could even consistently guess what temperature the air around me is without being at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit off. Now that you point it out to me, less granularity probably makes life a bit simpler.
The granularity point is interesting; in the US, setting a building’s thermostat to 68 degrees Fahrenheit vs. 66 degrees Fahrenheit is typically considered a pretty non-arbitrary decision as far as saving money vs. gaining comfort goes.
Plenty of Celsius thermostats can be set to within a tenth of degree (not that I know anybody who ever sets the tenths’ digit to anything other than 0 or 5).
Remembering that water freezes and boils and 32 degree and 212 degree is harder then remembering that it boils at 0 and 100.
The great thing about those numbers is that they are objective references points. Fahrenheit defined temperature by referring to the ‘average human body temperature’ which isn’t a physical constant in the same sense as boiling temperature of water.
Today the Fahrenheit scale is also defined over when water freezes and boils but at 32 degree and 212 degree. The difference is a clear 180 which is a round number if you think in base 60, but thinking in base 10 is a lot easier than thinking in base 60.
Whether or not water freezes has a lot of effects on the weather. When deciding whether to walk about a frozen lake the amount of days that the weather was below 0 matters. For gardering it matters whether the soil freezes.
I can’t remember a use case where I would have wanted more granularity in my temperature scale then Celsius provides. When making sure that tea I drink is at 55 degree Celsius I would however need three digits to represent the temperature.
Better compatibility with other SI units also matters.
This is a good point; using 0 as a reference point for freezing, which does have real life applications (is it going to snow? will this morning’s rain cause icy roads? etc.) is much less arbitrary than how it’s used on the Fahrenheit scale. I suppose boiling has cooking applications as well?
The granularity point is interesting; in the US, setting a building’s thermostat to 68 degrees Fahrenheit vs. 66 degrees Fahrenheit is typically considered a pretty non-arbitrary decision as far as saving money vs. gaining comfort goes. Now that I actually stop and think about it though, if you asked me to guess what temperature a building I’m currently in’s thermostat was set at, I’m not sure I’d actually be able to tell you.
In fact, I’m not sure I could even consistently guess what temperature the air around me is without being at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit off. Now that you point it out to me, less granularity probably makes life a bit simpler.
Plenty of Celsius thermostats can be set to within a tenth of degree (not that I know anybody who ever sets the tenths’ digit to anything other than 0 or 5).