Hi, I think in metric units, so almost everything is some form of a power of 10, like a kilogram is a 1000 grams, etc.
Sometimes I will think of an hour and half as 150 minutes before remembering that it is 90 minutes.
Does something similar happen to imperial units users? Because as far as I understand you don’t have obvious patterns that would cause you to make these mistakes, right?
Please elaborate. I’m trying to understand why you think that people perceive Fahrenheit better than Celsius (metric).
A human has a core temperature between 36.1°C (97°F) and 37.2°C (99°F). If a person has a fever, it can be anything from 38°C (100.4°F) to 40°C (104°F). If we then don’t have a thermometer to measure the temperature, our perception of “hot” will be the same when trying to determine if there’s a fever or not.
Down at the beach water freezes at 0°C (32°F) and boils at 100°C (212°F). So it’s dead simple for a 3 year old to understand since they just have to see the ice/ steam.
100°F not so much since there’s nothing you have that you can relate to that is 100°F exactly.
It relates to the temperatures you’d expect to feel in nature.
They’re saying that since imperial units were designed to relate to physical things, instead of standardizing around a common thing, things like temperature can have a scale that makes sense. It’s really easy to learn that 0 is a cold ass day and 100 is a day you’re gonna sweat your ass off. That’s about the extent of the positives you get from it.
For measuring everything metric is obviously better.
I disagree with you claiming that F makes it easier to relate to physical things than C, it is just as easy to learn that -10 it is a cold winter day and at 30 it is time to break out the ice cream and cool down.
Ok. You’re free to disagree but I never said that.
But that’s the exact problem. The human body adjusts.
One person in Norway might tell you that 59°F is t-shirt weather while another person living in India might say that you’d better bring an extra jacket. One person in Egypt might tell you that 91°F is okeyish while elderly people in Denmark is dying of heatstroke.
People in metric countries have no problem comprehending that -17°C is a cold fucking day and that 37°C is a heat record in most countries.
That same logic applies to temperatures in C also.
I’m not saying anything beyond the 1-100 scale makes a lot of sense (kinda why metric uses a base 10 system too….) and that’s the primary reason why.
You’ve never been asked the question “on a scale of -17 to 37 how are you feeling” today and that’s because that scale doesn’t make a lot of sense for perception. That’s the only thing I am saying, 1-100 does make sense in that regard.
I’m STILL not advocating for it imperial over metric.
I still don’t get “There’s some things imperial is just better at…We as people can perceive imperial temperatures a lot better than metric.”
I can remember -17.8°C and 37°C just as good as Americans can remember 32°F and 212°F. So in that sense there’s no difference, just different scales.
However, Fahrenheit based 0°F on the lowest outdoor temperature he could measure in Gdansk (Poland) during the winter of 1708/1709. He then based 100°F on his own body temperature.
Even if you were able to perceive human body temperature without a thermometer, there’s no way you in any way can relate to the winter of 1708/1709.
At this point using Fahrenheit is just a principle and nothing else.
if you think of Fahrenheit as roughly corresponding to the approximate percentage of your skin you’d like exposed it works out
Let me go ahead and distance myself from that statement.
I didn’t make it.
I’m saying that standard units were created the way they were for a reason and if you stop and remove the idea of the metric system as something to compare it to (which will make standard look bad always) you can see there is some logic and reasoning to it and often it’s because the measures are easily to comprehend.
That doesn’t make it better, it made it work in a time when standardization was rare. Metric is clearly the better system for measuring EVERYTHING but the standard units were what they were for a reason.
That said personally having used both metric and standard for my whole life and now largely use metric for everything where measuring matters, I find myself converting temperature specifically back into Fahrenheit. Everything else I convert the other way. Just an anecdote.