• trinicorn [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    18 hours ago

    how so?

    arbitrarily setting the freezing point of water to 32 and the boiling point to 212 and then filling in the rest from there isn’t what I’d call “making sense”

    I guess they’re 180 apart but why 32, why not 0 and 180?

    • blunder [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 hours ago

      I think it’s more about common ambient temperatures we encounter than the freezing point of water. 0 F is absolutely freezing, 100 F is hellishly hot, 50 F is pleasantly cool.

      Now for scientific use it’s fucked

      • trinicorn [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        8 hours ago

        eh, that’s all so vibes based and varies so widely by climate as to be meaningless IMO. its like saying meters are less intuitive than inches and feet because a meter is too big and a centimeter is too small to be human scale. Boils down to what you grew up with IMO

        I actually do think it’s “better” in one way that isn’t completely vibey though: 1 degree F is a lot closer to the difference in air temperature that humans will notice, so especially for like, indoor air, its nice to have that extra resolution to see the difference between 68, 69, 70 F without using a decimal point.

    • combat_doomerism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      18 hours ago

      the freezing point was set to the freezing point of brine, not water. doesnt make a lot of sense, but it makes more sense than inches -> feet -> yard -> mile (not to mention league etc.) what the fuck is an inch? who fucking knows, maybe the distance between your knuckles on one of your fingers??? the point is not that farenheit is good, but that the rest of the imperial measurements are even worse

      • trinicorn [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        8 hours ago

        yeah, I mean some eutectic brine of ice, water, and camel piss salt seems pretty scienticious to me

        if anything, three barleycorns laid end to end might be more sensible lol

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      18 hours ago

      As someone that learned Celsius first, I can intuit Fahrenheit pretty easily in a day to day setting. Can’t imagine doing science with it though