this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Tbf does anybody? It's a pretty stupid system.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Tonnes of engineering white papers showing how much imperial measure errors cost US industry.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 55 minutes ago

And what size are those white papers, that's right US letter standard

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

Don’t you mean kilograms of white papers? :P

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I mean, one would hope that a nation would know at least one system. If they tell me one more time "it just makes more sense" about stupid fahrenheit it will be too much.

The freezing and boiling points of MALT does not a good system make!

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's a better system for weather, but that's about it. 0 is very cold, and 100 is very hot. No decimals needed.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

... Please stop. Its not only not true it is also very silly. No its not good for weather, 78 is not a temp for a room.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

78F is not a typical room temperature.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 1 points 8 hours ago

Yes! And how would anyone know one way or the other?! Its american madness

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're just jealous you're not made of malt

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh then we both have terrible news today....

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

uh oh. you tell me mine. im pretty stupid

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

THAT’S WHAT IT’S BASED ON?

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

One of my pet peeves is people thinking units of the past or people in the past were stupid, as opposed to just prioritizing different things.

The low end was based on the stabilizing temperature of a solution of water, ice and salt in a proportion lost to time. The benefit was that a water/ice/salt solution will stabilize it's temperature naturally until the ice melts, making it useful for calibrating something like a thermometer: "ice" can be below the freezing point, but you can use the solution to set a steady baseline: the liquid will be 0°F.
The next steady baseline was body temperature, available to anyone measuring.
The scale was then set so that the freezing and boiling points of water were 180° apart. This was useful because it put them on opposite sides of a dial.
It was before we decided that ten was the ultimate number that couldn't be beat, so people still played with circular symmetry, thirds and so one.

This meant you could calibrate your thermometer by setting 0 to bring, 100 to your body, and then pushing steam through it and adjusting the offset so that the intervals were right and you correct body temperature variance. Some specific numbers have changed over the years as we adjust the scale to be based on metric.

Not stupid or arbitrary, just prioritizing things we don't care about so much any more.

Celsius and the other are both based on absolute zero and a very specific change in energy levels in the medium, so it's ultimately moot. Neither is technically based on what they originally were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_revision_of_the_SI

[–] argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Oh sure, it just so happens to line up just so and comes from a time where malt (max saturation of salt in water) was common.

Fun thing though is that due to this its the one thing f is good at. No point salting a road at or below zero f. Yeap that's it, wooooo

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today -1 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I've always explained °Fwith:

0° = Cold AF

100° = Hot AF

50° = Chilly, but manageable

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

For Celsius

0º - water becomes solid - it's cold

25º - water is refreshing - ideal temperature

50º - water is scalding - dangerous

100º - water is boiling - guaranteed serious injure territory from this point forward

And, since nobody seems to reach an agreement...

For Kelvin

0º - matter has ceased to move; collapse of matter and reality as we understand it - it's cold

273.15º - water is remains solid - still cold

298.15º - water is a fluid, drinkable, safe to enter - ideal temperature

323.15º - water is capable of delivering serious injuries upon contact - dangerous

373.15º - water is passing into vapour form at high rythm - avoid proximity and all contact from this point forward

[–] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

FYI: Kelvin doesn't use the degree symbol. It's not degrees Kelvin, just Kelvin.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I'll leave as a testimony of my idiocy. May those seeking to demonstrate my ineptitude never lack evidence.

[–] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 1 points 9 hours ago

Nah, it's not widely known. Multiple teachers in school got it wrong.

[–] amio@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

This is not the explanation you think it is, over there.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

So I take it 50°F is the ideal temperature for humans, since it's halfway between cold and hot?