• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    True, but that’s also not super relevant to the merits of a temperature scale. Fahrenheit isn’t actually based off of human subjective temperature perception, it just coincidentally lines up a bit closer with the comfortable range for people in northern temperate climates.

    Before it’s redefinition in terms of Celsius, fahrenheit was defined by a particular temperature stable brine solution (easy to replicate for calibration), and with the freezing and boiling points of water set to be 180 degrees apart, because of the relationship with a circle.

    People decided we liked base10 adherence more than trigonometry, and then everyone adopted Celsius, so we should use Celsius. Doesn’t make fahrenheit some sort of random scale, just deprecated.

    • yata@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The most common defence of Fahrenheit are Americans saying it is the most suited for humans because 0 is “very cold” and 100 “very hot”. That is why people are referencing it with regards to the merits of a temperature scale in this thread.