
Why Fahrenheit is better than Celsius. - crasshopper
http://tumblr.com/xp11qb35vf
======
_delirium
For weather, which I find more natural depends somewhat on the climate. In
Denmark, the celsius system seems quite natural, even as an American. Freezing
being at 0 C is a reasonable reference point; below it is cold, above it is
okay, >10C above it is warm, >20C above it is grilling on the beach. I find it
a bit less natural in Greece, though admittedly it may be different if I had
grown up there. The main awkwardness is that I find myself mentioning specific
temperatures more often; it seems that the colloquial equivalent for an
expression like "low 70s" is "around 22".

I don't have a problem with people using whatever they want, though. In
scientific and engineering work I'd stick to C, but I don't see great benefits
from consistency in daily life; it's not hard to approximately convert in your
head. The way I usually do it is to start at an approximate reference point
suitable for the climate, like 0 C/30 F or 20 C/70 F, and then have the F
temperature be twice as far from the reference point as the C temperature.
None of those numbers are quite right, of course, but it's easy in my head to
say that 5 C = 40 F or 80 F = 25 C, which are 1-2 degrees off but close enough
for discussing the weather.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Only reason: Because Americans are raised used to it. Humans hate to change,
learn new things or getting used to them goes against our comfort zone, humans
rationalize almost everything according to what their emotions dictate them.

As a European, like anyone in the world that is not American or English, I
have been raised using Celsious degrees, so I am on the other side of the
coin.

Biased arguments are not useful. This is a debate instead of dialectic.

~~~
reeses
Having lived in Europe and the US, I see what he's saying. He's referring more
to Miller's "seven, plus or minus two" guide for the human's ability to
differentiate values along a single axis.

With Celsius, you're using an extremely narrow range in day-to-day life, the
most common use case. Do I need to wear layers today? Hmm, there will be a
high of 21, and a low of 15, so I guess I should grab a vest. If I ask someone
the forecast, and they say,"around 20 degrees," I don't know if I'll need the
vest, as that could cover 18 to 22 degrees.

Except in rare circumstances, you're not going to need to tell people it's
going to be 40+ degrees. If you do, you don't really need the precision
anyway, as anything above 30 degrees is probably going to be "hot."

Therefore, that 40-100 range (and beyond) is basically useful for cooking.
Sure, it's important on a day-to-day basis, but you generally have specific
targets for what you're cooking.[1] I'd argue Fahrenheit is even more useful
in cooking, as the difference in one or two degrees Celsius can ruin your
fish.

Fahrenheit, with a broader range, is easier to digest and more resilient to
signal loss. "Forties" means "wear a coat," "eighties" means "call in sick and
go play," "nineties" means "I wonder what's playing at the cinema so I can sit
in air conditioned darkness."

Peace comes at -40 degrees, when C = F.

[1] Don't get me started on gas marks, from the people who brought you L.s.d.

------
michaelcgorman
I've started using Celsius in my everyday life. As an American, it's not the
easiest thing to do, but I'm used to that from my use of the 24-hour clock and
the metric system (even my car is in km/h). I prefer Celsius because it seems
much less arbitrary. (A physicist-friend is trying to get me to switch to
Kelvin, but absolute-zero has no implication on whether or not I should wear a
coat when I leave my house.)

Fellow developers: _please_ allow me to use the measurement system I choose to
use. In my transition, I realized how much we take this stuff for granted and
assume everyone does things the way we do it ourselves. It doesn't take much
work to give people a toggle b/t Fahrenheit and Celsius, 12/24-hour clock, or
English/Metric.

------
martinkallstrom
"The scientific community adopted Kelvin instead Rankine, and that pretty much
sealed the deal for Celsius. Today’s familiar units such as joules and the
calorie (the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a gram of
water by 1˚C) assume we’re working with Celsius-sized degrees."

<http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html>

------
garyrichardson
I'd say the primary difference for day to day weather use is cultural. If you
grew up with F or C, that's what you're used to and is what's best for you.

I'm in Vancouver, BC. I'm really close to the US border and have spent a fair
amount of time in the states traveling. Going to the states is always
confusing as I don't have the experiences to know what their temperatures
mean, nor do I have a map in my mind. I know what 0C, 5C, 10C, 15C, 20C, 25C,
30C and 35C feel like. It's no different that 30F vs 70F for the author.

I know freezing is 0C and boiling is 100C and the body temp is 37C. I have
know idea what the corresponding values are in F, and I really don't care
because it rarely affects me and if I need to know I can ask my iPhone.

The one place this isn't true, at least in Canada, is cooking. We still use
the imperial system. The oven is always at 350F, and sometimes 425F. But those
have no relation to my normal day to day temperature uses. They are just
numbers I'm used to because I use them on a day to day basis.

------
cletus
Yes and:

\- horses are better than cars;

\- the telegraph is better than the phone;

\- fixed line phones are better than cell phones;

\- bulletin boards are better than the Internet;

\- dialup is better than broadband;

\- black and white TV is better than colour;

\- standard def is better than hi def;

\- windows 3.1 is better than Windows 7;

\- and so on.

~~~
jfm3
You're not really addressing the arguments presented in the linked post,
you're just being snarky. I can appreciate that, but the linked post makes
some really good points.

Also, the converse of the point you seem to be trying to make with your litany
above is also true: new things are not always necessarily better than old
ones.

~~~
cletus
> You're not really addressing the arguments presented in the linked post,
> you're just being snarky.

Correct.

> ... the linked post makes some really good points.

No, it doesn't (IMHO), hence my (admittedly) snarky response.

The TL:DR version of the post is "I'm used to Fahrenheit and like saying and
hearing 'in the fifties'". That's not an argument, it's an historical artifact
(being what they were exposed and thus accustomed to) dressed up as
preference.

> new things are not always necessarily better than old ones.

Who ever said they were? I cited specific examples. Please don't erect a straw
man and put words in my mouth.

The theme of what I said can be described as:

\- people resist change; and

\- when someone describes something as "better" what they normally mean is
that they're used to it.

~~~
crasshopper
The TL;DR version of the post is that celsius throws away 70% of the 2-digit
numbers.

------
kilian
The only thing I know about Fahrenheit is that -40C == -40F.

Furthermore, Good case for Fahrenheit being more intuitive. The same points
can be made for Celcius though, so the whole point is moot.

------
pluies_public
"A random temperature scale is better than another random temperature scale
because I'm used to it."

~~~
crasshopper
Did you read the article?

------
larrik
This always bugged me too. Fahrenheit is more than double the precision of
Celsius. The thermodynamic properties of water just aren't important enough in
daily life to make sacrificing that precision seem worth it.

Similarly, measuring things in feet is more precise and easier to me than
measuring in meters. Tenth of meters is awkward, and decimeters are just never
used colloquially. 5 feet tall vs. 6 feet or 1.5 vs 1.8 meters? Yuck.

~~~
mseebach
Usually people would mention their height in centimeters, such as 183 cm --
which is more precise than feet and inches. But that's not the point. Metric
is "better" because it's decimal and since you very often need to perform
arithmetic on distances, having them in a format that is easy to do arithmetic
on is a good thing.

Unless you're doing physics, you'll never do arithmetic on temperatures, and
therefore the ability to more intuitively describing the weather is much more
valid.

For the record, I'm European, and have no intuition of Fahrenheit
temperatures. But the guy is actually making a valid point.

~~~
crasshopper
The Eric Prinder.com link makes a related point to yours: People often
conflate "metric is better" with "Celsius is better".

------
tobylane
The article says we don't need to be scientific, that a scale going from the
1800's coldest temperature (ice houses) to the body's internal temperature is
better than one going from one change of state of something we can easily
access, manipulate and judge, to the other state change.

No. Celsius. For all I know it's another one of those silly anti-colonial
things like driving on the wrong side of the road.

~~~
crasshopper
This argument is about significant figures, nothing else.

------
erebrus
The argument that scientific relevancy is not relevant in the choice of
measuring unit is somewhat...ironic?

I do however agree that this doesn't deserve discussion and falls into the
category of "someone with too much time on their hands and nothing useful to
do with it"

------
dedward
Growing up in Canada, in the generation I did, we tend to use both.... though
metric is official.

For winter temperatures, we tend to work in C.

0 is freezing - it's convenient. We'll say it's +5 or +10 or -5 out... we know
we're talking about C.

Occasionally I'll catch my parents, or even me, saying "It's like 90 degrees
out" - we're talking F obviously - only used for pool heater and hot days...
because 100F is damn hot.

As to better.... in that all measurement systems are provably equal, the
metric one is the world accepted standard, so just go with it already,
jeeze...

~~~
angus77
I'm trying to figure out how old you are if you use both. Older than me (33),
as I haven't the slightest clue what the temperature in Fahrenheit is, but
younger than my parents (mid-60s) who insist on talking to me in Fahrenheit
(and I still never managed to pick it up!)

~~~
crasshopper
30 + celsius degrees * 2

~~~
angus77
I hope that's 30 + (celsius degress * 2), otherwise he's older than my
parents!

------
pmccool
I guess. Having next to no experience of using Fahrenheit, I'm happy to take
other peoples' word when it comes to day-to-day usefulness.

It seems to me, though, that the relative merits pale into insignificance
compared to the potential benefits of picking a standard, doesn't much matter
which one, and being able to forget about converting between the two.

------
nickolai
My real life is better without two different temperature scales. And I happen
to have learned some chemistry.

It's all about what one is used to. Of Fahrenheit I only know that 100 is
about body temperature. Above is too hot, below - could be okay. So yeah I
prefer Celsius, which happens to be a little less of a boolean scale to me.

~~~
crasshopper
What's Boolean about either?

~~~
zyfo
Boolean in the sense of: Is X Fahrenheit warmer or colder than the average
body temperature?

~~~
crasshopper
Isn't Celsius equally "boolean" in that sense then, as in this comment:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2313288> ? Above or below freezing.

~~~
nickolai
Sure is. To some people. I was talking about my own perspective :)

------
trezor
This is stupid and not worthy of Hacker news. And a stupid graph with a
"FFFFUUUU"-style clutter in it wont make me go "lol!" and change my mind
either.

Go away. Keep this to reddit please?

~~~
bradleyland
I think there's a very relevant point here. Listen carefully to his arguments
and set aside any attachment you may have to C or F. Personally, I lament our
reluctance to switch to the metric system here in the US, but setting that
aside, the author does a good job of relating why _he_ likes Fahrenheit. He
expresses how he's able to relate to it better than Celsius, and he makes some
good points.

How is that applicable to HN? Imagine the author is one of your customers.
Further, imagine that he probably represents the majority of your customers in
the US. Now imagine that you're building a cool new social weather website. As
an international standards fanatic, you decide that you're going to use
Celsius on your new website, because "that's what the world speaks gosh-
darnit, and US users are coming with us, like it or not!" _raises fist_

This is a neat little exercise in listening. Is it realistic? No, it's
patently absurd. You won't find many people who would roll a US-targeted
website using metric units of measure. The implications are too obvious. But
what if we apply this rationale to the other decisions we make. What aspects
of our craft are affected by our attachment to "correctness", even when our
users cry out for something different? Ask yourself these questions:

What attachments do I have that I force on my users/customers?

What aspects of my craft confuse users the most?

Then let go of your attachments and try a different approach, measure the
results, rinse and repeat.

~~~
crasshopper
I think what's interesting is "X has a useful property P that everybody talks
about. But P is not what we want to optimize on."

------
Trufa
Ok, I'm not even going to bother commenting...

------
petervandijck
Water freezes at 0 degrees C. At what temperature does water freeze in F?

~~~
petervandijck
Downvotes ftw?

