Saw this recently on a WAN Show (19:12). How true is this? It sounds wild.

Because of its scale, Fahrenheit works better for describing the temperature as it relates to people and how comfortable or dangerous it is. Celsius obviously works better for science and engineering. Both systems are arbitrary and either will work once your used to them obviously. Fahrenheit is anthrocentric. Celsius is centered around the phase changes of water at a standard (arbitrary) pressure. The only temperature scale that approaches universality and attempts to not be arbitrary is the Kelvin.

Fahrenheit is my preferred scale when dealing with weather and heating/cooling my home because with Fahrenheit, you can describe almost the entire range of normal human experience from freezing to death to burning to death with (almost always) only two digits and no sign change. If you see an extra digit or a negative sign on the Fahrenheit scale you know shit just got real. And as for the numbers in between 0-100, you can conceptualize them as a simple decimal range like we do for lots of other statistical things like movie ratings, school/exam grading brackets, political polls on TV, percentages, etc.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver
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@ LonelyWendigo

What? That’s a rationalization for your preferred system.

Depts of Winter -35C
Spring/Fall 0C
Heights of Summer +35C

In Fahrenheit that would be:

Winter -31F
Spring/Fall +32F
Summer +95F

Which is completely arbitrary.

Yes, I thought I was very clear that I was explaining my rationalization for why Fahrenheit is my preferred arbitrary system for a specific use case. Fahrenheit is arbitrary and centered around human existence. Celsius is also arbitrary and centered around the phase changes of water. I made no mention of season because again, that is totally arbitrary, not universal, and depends wholly on geography. The only temperature scale that even gets close to trying to not be arbitrary is Kelvin, but I don’t see you bullying for it’s everyday use.

…Are you saying that the rest of the world have not a single idea, which temperature is burning hot and which temperature is freezing cold?

All of that is just a matter of habits/familiarity. If you are used to Celcius, you know 0℃ is freezing cold, like literally. Anything beyond 40℃ is “shit just got real” territory.

If you want to call out “but 40 is not an intuitive number!!” then I would briefly mention that 212℉ is not an intuitive number for the boiling point of water either.

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