In my new scale, °X, 0 is Earths’ record lowest surface temperature, 50 is the global average, and 100 is the record highest, with a linear scale between each point and adjustment every year as needed.

https://explainxkcd.com/3001/

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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    6 hours ago

    I don’t really use the Fahrenheit scale for anything, but when I bump into it, I prefer to think of those values as: 0°F is a cold winter and 100°F is a hot summer weather. Makes sense for the human experience, which makes it a very practical unit. The original definition was more technical than that, but it was also severely limited by the technology at the time, so it had some flaws.

    You also have to look at these units in the proper historical context. Measurements were a complete mess, so having at least something that sort of makes some sense and is somewhat repeatable, is a clear improvement. Both, Fahrenheit and Celcius scales totally addressed those concerns, and that makes them both good enough. Absolute zero and plank temperature weren’t even known back then, so what can you expect.

    When it comes to using these units in serious scientific and engineering applications, you run into problems, but the kelvin scale addresses those pretty well. It’s not exactly elegant, but at least it’s functional. Because of historical baggage, we’re pretty much stuck with these units, but it could be worse.

    • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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      3 hours ago

      I agree, historically they make sense, but times have evolved and I honestlt believe certain things should belong to the past, just like we abandoned 12 base monetary and measurement systems, except for a single place on earth that just ignores what everyone else does and goes their own way.

      In a global world, we should unite things instead of dividing for ideological/political reasons. Still, my own is an ideological reason why the imperial system should disappear, but there are pratical issues it causes, espeically when used internationally in industrial and scientific fields, which is very common.

      • slouching_employer@lemmy.one
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        18 minutes ago

        I think a large portion of it is that governments/institutions/whatever don’t want to pay the large amount of money it would take to replace all signage/software/etc.

        The classic “high short term costs for long term benefits” vs. “no (direct monetary) short term costs for ‘future me’ problems”.

      • helloworld55@lemm.ee
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        21 minutes ago

        I mean the imperial system has it’s niche uses too. Fractional measurements are helpful if you’re doing multiple of something and you don’t want to calculate. What if you have 16 boards and you need to lay them out across 19 feet, what’s the width for each board and gap? Well its 19/16 or 1-3/16. And you could say your tolerance is ±1/16. Versus a decimal system, you need to hit 1.1875, with a ±0.0625 tolerance. Yeah no, imperial is better in that case.

        Bur imperial does have it’s pains, especially once you start working with anything that isn’t a multiple of 2. Just wanted to point out it does have some uses.

    • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      0 is an extremely cold winter. Like you’re going to die very quickly if you’re outside without extreme weather gear.

      Where I’m at, mid east coast, we only have a few days each winter get below 20, which is already hellishly cold.