Fahrenheit is better than Celsius.
So most of the relevant temperature variation — the vast differences throughout all of spring, summer, and fall—are restricted to only 23 integers. (I could use decimals, if I wanted to sound like a robot.)
Indeed, on human scales it’s a lot better. The same problem with the metric system. It’s designed to work well mathematically, not humanistically.
And to those who say it’s just because I’m not used to it, not so: I was in the Army for five years where that’s all that is used.
If you want to make a space probe, sure go metric and Celsius and what have you. Want to give me a meaningful temperature or distance, use Fahrenheit and feet.
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. I grew up in India and metric made perfect sense growing up. Now I’m in the US, and it took a while, but after 6 years in this country, fps system also has started to make sense. In fact, I can now make sense of most things in both systems. It’s like being bilingual.
I like Celsius better because it gives two good references – 0 is freezing and 100 is boiling.
And that’s the reason I dislike Celsius — too little precision in the “human” range of temperatures without using decimals and sounding like a robot.
I grew up in the US with fahrenheit (for weather) and it makes perfect sense and I understand it, but in Europe where I live now, I think in Celsius for weather.
The weird thing is that when I see fahrenheit temperatures for Europe they seem all wrong. I know what 20 Celsius feels like and if I see it’s 68 Fahrenheit I’m confused because 68 fahrenheit feels completely different to me than does 20 Celsius.
I don’t know if that’s just me or if other people feel the same way…
A weird place where the metric system has caught on in Europe (at least Poland) is in the size of tv screens which are measured diagonally in inches, very weird.
Bluejeans (the main pants I wear) are also often given in inches (again the metric system feels wrong there for me).
I think that inches and feet are better in terms of human relatability than centimeters (too many small distinctions to keep straight).
Agreed on centimeters vs. inches. Centimeters are just a bit too small to distinguish easily and the name is unwieldy as well.
I’d actually prefer the inch be a bit longer, and divided into 20, not 16. But anyway, that’ll never happen.
I do think the kilometer is a pretty good distance, though. It’s about right for its intended purpose. But that’s just accidental of course.
Difference of 1C = difference of 1.8F.
Does anyone really use 1 degree differences in F (which would be needed to require using decimals in C) in day to day activities?
I use those differences, but that’s not what’s important.
First advantage:
Fahrenheit: 45 degrees to 75 degrees = 25 gradations
Celsius (equiv): 7 to 21 degrees = 14 gradations
When someone tells me it’s 15 degrees Celsius outside, I don’t know whether I should get a light jacket or not. It’s just not fine enough since a lot of times I only care about the first number. And 10 to 19 spans 50 to 66 F. By contrast, 60 to 69 means (in most cases) T-shirt ok, no jacket needed. I can spend less time looking at Fahrenheit and get more information. Part of that is being used to it, but part of it is that it’s just better at human scales. (Kind of like feet and inches vs. centimeters and meters. And don’t mention decimeters. No one uses those in real life.)
Celsius without decimals is too vague. It’s designed to be mathematically pleasing, not to work well for humans. Great for launching a rocket, not so much for me telling how cold it is outside. It’s the perfect engineered system, and has all the flaws therein.
I’d actually prefer that Fahrenheit were more mathematically pleasing, but all in all I prefer the more difficult but more human Fahrenheit scale.
But Celsius is fine if you are accustomed to it. People can and do get used to any system no matter how poor it is at its intended use (see acres and drams and such, and Windows 8).
Celsius works okay for where I live, the coldest it ever gets is about 20 below (about zero fahrenheit) and the hottest is just under 40) so that gives a 60 degree margin.
Knowing the temperature in tenths of celsius is kind of useless if the weather typically changes a lot in one day as it does in Poland, where I sit at this moment, you can easily get temperatures from three seasons in one day (especially late winter, early spring and late summer early fall).
Dressing for an exact temperature is not possible when the recorded temperature (and perceived temperature) are liable to change ten or so degrees independently of each other over the course of the day.