Scientifically, Celsius has no more merit than Fahrenheit. Either use Kelvin on the daily or get off your high horse. Knowing 0C and 100C as important water temperatures isn’t special when your preferred air temperature is 24C, a value no more natural than 32F being the freezing point of water.

You get used to whatever system you use.

Fahrenheit is British ya Dingus.

In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade - which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.

–Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

One thing dumber than Americans still using Fahrenheit is non-Americans being obsessed with Americans still using Fahrenheit

I would not agree that Fahrenheit is what is wrong with the USA but the jingoistic opposition to metricization is probably a symptom of delusional American exceptionalism, which does hit closer to the mark.

That makes absolute zero sense

Fahrenheit was literally devised by a physicist, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a European, mind you.

It was based on physical properties, too. Originally 0 was the freezing point of a replicable water solution, and 96 was set at human body temperature (96 used as it made dividing a thermometer easier). It was later recalibrated to put boiling at 212, 180 degrees from freezing, but that’s the original basis.

There is no god-ordained rule that states that 0 has to be the freezing point of water, nor 100 the boiling point.

Fahrenheit also has an inherent advantage to Celsius in that for every 5 degrees C there are 9 degrees F. There is more inherent precision.

I would personally put excessive gun ownership and exaggerated desire to make use of them above Fahrenheit. The current administration as well. Obesity and addiction to opioids also, come to think of it. And I have a feeling I’m forgetting a few other issues.

You could make an argument that the cultural undertones of hardcore individualism and striving for selfish monetary success lie at the bottom of a lot of those issues. And maybe a desire to want to go their own way informed the opposition to Celsius and the metric system as a whole. I would not make this choice the poster boy for what’s wrong with the US though.

Both temperature scales are made up. Both are workable. Both come from Europe. Where if it wasn’t for enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon (events far away from the New World) we might still also measure in cubits, pounds, and regional tworps. Horses are still measured in hands, deer in points (I think, not sure about that one). The Brits still delight us with mph speed limits on their motorways and body weight measured in stones. Worldwide the more commonly used calories are a member of team imperial, not metric. Bicycles and screen sizes are more commonly measured in inches in Europe as well. Celsius had put 0° as the boiling point of water initially so we’re all using it wrong, I say with tongue very much in cheek. The US opposition to going full metric is a bit dumb but not unique at all. The Japanese measure apartments in tatami mat sizes.

What’s intetesting about the US imperial system of measurements is that if you scratch under the surface it is mostly if not all of it propped up by the metric system. Lawful definitions of how long an inch is and how hot 98.6 °F is are expressed in terms of the metric system as the worldwide standard. So they are at the core fully metric, they just don’t know about it.

I’m American and I use Celsius. I don’t talk to anyone about the weather so I use the one I like.

I don’t think that argument is about using it for science experiments but for weather.

So a justifiable and logical argument to how humans feel cold and heat in the temperature scale debate is selfish? 🧐

Not saying that I side with F over C or vise versa, but that’s a weird conclusion you’ve drawn.

Both systems are completely arbitrary. It’s weird that you would think using either would be a mark of selfishness.

Celsius is based on water. 0ºC is freezing, 100ºC is boiling. Water is a good metric to go on, but it’s not very good for conveying to humans what is hot and what is cold, because even though we are made up of a lot of water, 0-100ºF is a scale that makes more sense to us. The equivalent in Celsius is something like -15 to something like 45ºC. And that makes less sense.

I’m a huge advocate of metric everywhere, but to say Celsius is objectively better than Fahrenheit is kind of silly.

It’s stupid that we still aren’t on the metric system.

Meh, they could have picked basically any chemical element or molecule to base their freezing/melting/boiling temperatures around. In the case of Celsius, they chose water, H2O, at sea level, at Earth’s atmospheric pressure, to base their standard temperatures around.

A hypothetical standard temperature scale could just as well be made around iron in a vacuum with zero atmospheric pressure floating around in space with zero gravity, but that’s not very practical down here on Earth, and water is rather abundant on the planet (ok let’s not get into the whole pure vs salremoveder thing, but you get my point).

Anyways, both Celsius and Fahrenheit are equally scientifically valid, as there’s a direct conversion formula to go from one to the other. Fahrenheit just seems easier to us in the states when thinking about the weather. 0 is fucking cold, 100 is fucking hot.