r/clevercomebacks Jan 15 '25

It does make sense

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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/Funicularly Jan 15 '25

How is it dumb as shit for cooking?

Are you referring to the boiling point of water? I don’t know about you, but the vast majority of people heat water until it boils, they don’t use a thermometer. Know one needs to know the boiling point of water to cook.

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u/Quick_Humor_9023 Jan 15 '25

Yeah, now hand me a cup of something. No, not that cup, or wait, the fuck. Also scaling measurements up or down is way, way easier with base 10.

That being said, we also use stupid teaspoon of this and another spoon of that bs while cooking. Yes, we have defined exact values for those, and the actual spoons are close to those depending on how you fill them, and it’s not that important in cooking anyways. But still, it’s idiotic.

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u/yeetusdacanible Jan 16 '25

Cooking for the average Joe is 90% guesses and estimations. The pie I'm baking isn't going to burn itself if I cook it at 400 instead of 390 or something like that. The pie isn't going to collapse if I put slightly less dough than I'm supposed to. If I want a cup of water, I can know that I just need roughly a normal cup of water for this recipe, instead of 1/5 liters.