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codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

100F was originally set to roughly human body temperature. 0 was the freezing point of a brine mixture (water, salt, and ammonium) meant to be similar to sea water. It was used because the temperature would self-stabilize at a particular temperature, which was defined as 0 degrees.

That’s why its “humanistic,” the scale roughly includes the temperature range we can survive in, and provides d3cent granularity within that range. Metric based everything on pure water, which is pretty arbitrary also, as evidenced by both scales being redefined as more precise and repeatable means of defining measured units have become available.

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baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Ah yes the salt and ammonia brine, how human.

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- pimento64@sopuli.xyz ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You’re one of today’s lucky 10,000, and yours is the eutectic system. Read my other comment if you don’t feel like looking into it.
  
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Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Both systems include the temps we can survive in

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- codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  “Includes” was the wrong word, its like the opposite of hyperbole here. The range humans can survive in is roughly 0 to 100 in F, the full range of the scale. The range in Centigrade is roughly -17 to 30. It isnt that it “includes” it, the entire useful portion of the meter is dedicated to it.
  
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  - Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    But humans can survive way past both points and commonly do. Not sure I see the usefulness of something that “rough” and vague. “It’s pretty cold” being 0 or -17 doesn’t seem like it matters a bit.
    
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  - TheRealKuni@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    The range humans can survive in is roughly 0 to 100 in F, the full range of the scale. The range in Centigrade is roughly -17 to 30
    
    Minor correction:
    
    30°C is a relatively normal temperature for much of the world (not necessarily all the time, but during the hotter parts of the year at least). That’s 86°F. Where I am in Michigan today the high is 32°C.
    
    0°F to 100°F is roughly -18°C to 38°C.
    
    “Thirty is hot, twenty is nice, ten is chilly, zero is ice.”
    
    (I’ve heard this as “ten is cold,” but to me ten isn’t cold, it’s just starting to get chilly. 10°C=50°F, and I wouldn’t call 50°F cold (depending on the season, I guess.)
    
    Off topic, having spent my whole life using Fahrenheit until about six years ago when I decided to test the “Fahrenheit is better for describing weather as it effects humans” reasoning I always used by switching to Celsius on all my devices…I personally much prefer Celsius. It is remarkable how much more meaning I get from -5°C than I ever did from 23°F. Because a degree Celsius is less granular than a degree Fahrenheit, learning the meaning of a degree is much easier. And because the below-freezing temperatures are negative reflections of the above-freezing values, it’s much easier to understand cold temperatures in Celsius (in my opinion).
    
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