this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024

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Burning Up (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Which system did you grow up with? Because I grew up from the start with Celsius und it is 100% intuitive to me. Everytime you americans use your funny temperature numbers I have to stop and use a tool for transforming it or I simply ignore it and go "low means cold and high means hot, how high? Ain't nobody got time for dat!"

So I disagree with your notion that Fahrenheit is intuitive. The system you grew up with and have multiple experiences as reference points for, is the system you feel is intuitive is also my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

That's not either scale being intuitive or unintuitive, that's your familiarity with one over the other.

I got curious so I did some research on the definitions and why everything is this way. It looks like they originally picked the coldest thing they had (brine, possibly inspired by the coldest weather), the freezing point of water, human body temperature, and the boiling point of water. It was supposed to be brine at 0, water freezing at 30, the human body at 90, and water boiling at 240. Fahrenheit then recalibrated his scale slightly to make his math (and thermometer design and production) easier, and also because he noticed water actually boiled at 212 by his newly modified scale.

Looking at it like that work the context of what they had at the time and what they were trying to do, it makes a lot of sense.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Never said either one can't be intuitive, just that the scale of farenheit has a precedence outside of it being an arbitrary temperature measurement by being a scale that goes from about 0 - 100.

If you had never used either scale and some one asked: "which is more intuitive, a temperature scale where -10 is really cold and 40 is really hot or one where 0 is really cold and 100 is really hot?" I know which one I would pick because I've done things before like calculate percentages and work in a base 10 system so it makes sense for the scale to be between two orders of magnitude.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But that is what we others are saying: there is no "more intuitive" system, just one you know better and can quicker evaluate how it would feel! So you agree with us.

Everything you said can be said about Celsius scale as well.

There is also a precedence for Celsius more than just an arbitrary number between 0 & 100.

A scale for liquid water, you know, the stuff that is the reason why we call our little spaceship "the blue marble"and why we even have this discussion, because it is the basis of all life on earth, is also not a bad choice for a number between 0-100.

And you made me curious: in what context did you have to calculate percentages of temperature that were not in Kelvin? Because as soon as percentages and temperatures are close to each other in one sentence the only example I can think of are things like reaction kinetic calculations and those are neither in Celsius nor in Fahrenheit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You should examine your definition of intuitive. Yes, technically nothing is intuitive it's just based on what you know because intuition is also based on what you're used to.

By your logic, if you compare a machine that powers on by pressing a big glowing red button labeled "ON" and one that turns on by you performing the haka in front of a camera while reciting a Shakespeare sonnet backwards you might say that there is no "more intuitive" way to turn on a machine, just one you know better and can perform quicker!

You aren't reading what you're replying to because I said in a previous post that it's easy to get used to Celsius and fahrenheit and there's no difference to either and I also already said that Celsius is better for science because it's based on water.

Everything you said can be said about Celsius scale as well.

At this point you're just lying or further proving that you didn't even read the post you tried to respond patronizingly to. I said that the Fahrenheit scale is intuitive because it's a 0-100 scale which is similar to other scales we use all the time and works well for our base 10 counting system being a scale essentially between two powers of 10. Neither of that can be said for Celsius and that's so obvious I think you just didn't read it before replying.

And hell, on top of all this, I think we should all switch to using Celsius! Because as I mentioned it's easy to grasp both scales and using Celsius makes understanding a lot of science easier which I think is the only real argument in this arbitrary choice between the two! But I'm out here explaining the use of Fahrenheit because people here can't grasp my explanation for why people might use it and are acting like they've got the defeater to a post they didn't even read!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

But fahrenheit is not a 0-100 scale. You have just arbitrarily picked out 0-100 because that makes your brain more easily understand the non-intuitive system which is fahrenheit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What you grew up with =/= what is intuitive.

That is not what intuitive means. You're talking about what's "familiar".

Familiarity is subjective. Intuitiveness is objective.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If we want to go that road, intuition is according to Wikipedia:

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge, without recourse to conscious reasoning or needing an explanation.[2][3] Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; gut feelings; inner sensing; inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition; and the ability to understand something instinctively, without any need for conscious reasoning.[4][5] Intuitive knowledge tends to be approximate.[6]

Since every temperature system needs an explanation, namely the reference points, no system is or even can be intuitive per this definition.