My air-conditioner stopped working!
- Thread starter propita
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The "first world problems" nonsense is really getting old.
Yes, because your completely arbitrary temperature scale is so much better than ours
What's arbitrary about a scale based around water? At least it's based around one thing, unlike Imperial units, which aren't based on anything specific and which don't relate to one another in any rational way.
What's so special about water that someone based an entire measuring system around it? Whether its Celsius or Fahrenheit I think both system work for their purposes, no matter what you think of the origins of how those systems came to be.
Maybe because water is chemically simple, practically versatile, abundant, stable, pH neutral, and essential?
I'm honestly shocked that people on a Star Trek forum wouldn't intuitively understand why it makes sense to base a measurement system around water.
It's based on water under pretty specific conditions. Of course water is important. But water doesn't really have any special relationship with temperature. The freezing point of water isn't 'zero' in any more meaningful of a sense than any other temperature (aside from absolute zero) pulled out of a hat.
The usual (perfectly valid) argument about 'American' units not being easy to work with in base 10 doesn't apply either.
As far as intuitiveness goes, considering we're talking about the weather, I'd argue that puts 0/100 at "about as cold/hot as it gets outside" is more intuitive than the freezing and boiling point of water. The boiling point at least is pretty irrelevant when talking about the weather.
The usual (perfectly valid) argument about 'American' units not being easy to work with in base 10 doesn't apply either.
As far as intuitiveness goes, considering we're talking about the weather, I'd argue that puts 0/100 at "about as cold/hot as it gets outside" is more intuitive than the freezing and boiling point of water. The boiling point at least is pretty irrelevant when talking about the weather.
Scientific repeatability and reliability is part of the point. Also remember that metric units are based around water in areas other than temperature. Liquid water, for instance, has a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter. This means 1 liter of water has a mass of 1 kilogram and occupies 1 cubic meter. See how nice that is?
Sure, we could've used any chemical as our basis, but water has the benefit of being one of the most abundant substances on Earth and is liquid at room temperature, which makes it very easy to measure out precise quantities.
I think that makes a lot more sense than having a bunch of unrelated units of measurement, none of them based on the same chemical or property.
A "metric system" based on something besides water could work just as well, but water's properties make it the most logical choice.
Are you saying the definition of Fahrenheit is not reliable or repeatable? I think Fahrenheit is officially defined in terms of water as well. Calling the freezing point 0 or 32 doesn't change how repeatable it is.
But that doesn't have a lot to do with the point as I see it. There's nothing logical about making the freezing point of water zero... which of course is why we have Kelvin. And in getting this stuff well-defined they had to break some of the niceness of Celsius anyway. Officially water boils at slightly less than 100C. And on the more 'scientific' end the freezing point is a not very round 273.15K.
But Kelvin isn't well-suited to discussing the weather. Fahrenheit seems better suited to that purpose than Celsius to me. It's at the very least not significantly less suited in any meaningful capacity deserving of the FOOTBALL NOT SOCCER U AMERICAN DUMMYS treatment.
Here's the way I look at it. There's 180 whole degrees of separation between the freezing point of water and the boiling point. Which makes it a touch or two "easier" to define what temperature at any given moment is. It's easier to understand, say, the difference between it being 65 outside and 66 degrees as those are whole numbers.
In Celsius? You're now getting into non-whole numbers which makes things like that a touch more complicated.
Now, granted, there's no a lot of difference between those two temperatures when it comes to feeling it but then on the Celsius scale a one degree difference is nearly 2 degrees on Fahrenheit which is a bit "bigger" of a difference.
Either way, whatever system works for you, works for you.
For me, I admit that the Metric System has its benefits, largely in the ease of moving from one unit to another but at the same time I've no "concept" of it. I've no idea what 30C feels like. I do know what 70F feels like.
In Celsius? You're now getting into non-whole numbers which makes things like that a touch more complicated.
Now, granted, there's no a lot of difference between those two temperatures when it comes to feeling it but then on the Celsius scale a one degree difference is nearly 2 degrees on Fahrenheit which is a bit "bigger" of a difference.
Either way, whatever system works for you, works for you.
For me, I admit that the Metric System has its benefits, largely in the ease of moving from one unit to another but at the same time I've no "concept" of it. I've no idea what 30C feels like. I do know what 70F feels like.
I can't believe people still argue about this. All systems of measurements are arbitrary. Centigrade works well in the lab, Fahrenheit works well in everyday life.
Personally, I wish there were a million different measuring systems, like there are languages.
Personally, I wish there were a million different measuring systems, like there are languages.
Good news. Just curious - was it a regular air conditioner or a swamp cooler? My wife's family in Fresno all use the swamp cooler style.
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