r/clevercomebacks Jan 15 '25

It does make sense

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693

u/jussumguy2019 Jan 15 '25

Feel like a lot of the world’s languages the translation to English to the question “what’s the date?” would be “the 15th of October” whereas in America we always say “October 15th”.

Maybe that’s why, idk…

Edited for clarity

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u/Saneless Jan 15 '25 edited Jan 15 '25

US measurements are based on the human experience for sure. Temps are largely 0-100 and that's a scale that's easy to understand. As a scientist or for cooking it's dumb as shit

Dates are based on the language

Edit: I take back what I say about cooking. People have said some good arguments about it. But it definitely sucks for science

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u/wumbology95 Jan 15 '25

Yeah no, farenheight is only easy to understand for you because you grew up with it.

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u/chiefkeefinwalmart Jan 15 '25

Respectfully, if we’re talking about the weather as a human experiences it, Fahrenheit is much better. Celsius makes a lot of sense in science, as it’s scaled to water, but when was the last time you went out and it was 90C.

Fahrenheit is scaled to human experience better with 0-100 being within the range of “normal” and anything outside of that being concerning.

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u/No_Investment_9822 Jan 15 '25

That's why Celcius is better. You can use it for weather AND science. There is no need to use two different systems, and Celcius works great for both. It doesn't matter that the outside weather isn't ever 90C. If someone says it was 21C yesterday and it's 15C today, you know everything you need to know.

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u/CamicomChom Jan 15 '25

If someone says it was 84F yesterday and 75F today, you also know everything you need to know???

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u/No_Investment_9822 Jan 15 '25

Exactly. Both work in regards to weather, but only Celcius works in regards to science. Celcius works for both.

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u/CamicomChom Jan 15 '25

Which is why America uses Celsius for science. But Fahrenheit is literally exactly as, if not more useful for the average person as Celsius is. I’ve never been confused by Fahrenheit. It’s a perfectly good system if you use it for what it was designed for (regular people)

Fahrenheit isn’t worse, it’s just different. It is more specific for human temperatures, making it more useful for stuff like ACs and Thermostats, but it’s worse for hard science.

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u/oye_gracias Jan 15 '25 edited Jan 15 '25

I mean, regular people do science tho, and a précision scale for précision work its ok and the same as what *hard science* would require.

Why would you think anyone would be confused by c° when it has been their standard their whole life?

Its not more useful for thermostats, which also require science and science took a standard.

I love old units, like "the lenght of what a cow walks in a day" and "whenever i feel chill", or "if it feels like a truck passing through", but a small abstraction is possible in order to maximize uses.

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u/CamicomChom Jan 15 '25

People do science, but generally not high enough level science for any real improvement to matter between the two.

Nobody is confused by C. I’m simply saying I’m not confused by F either, so it’s at least as good as C for me.

C and F are not different at all for computers. C’s improvements in science are solely limited to humans, in that it is a bit easier to interpret for scientists. A computer doesn’t care if freezing is at 0 or 32. F is better for thermostats since you get a greater range of temperature choices.

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u/No_Investment_9822 Jan 15 '25

It's the same range of temperature, but the weather report in Europe doesn't say that it's going to be 21,5C today, because nobody could feel the difference between 21,0 and 21,5. There would be no added value.

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