• MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Fahrenheit used the temperature of the human body to create his system, which makes a lot more sense than other systems.

        What is 0°F in terms of the human body? I’m guessing that 100°F is supposed to be a normal human body temperature, but in reality that will vary from person to person and everybody I’ve met is usually 97-99 unless they have a fever.
        In Celsius/Centigrade, 0° is the freezing point of water at 1 atmosphere of pressure, and 100° is the boiling point.
        In Kelvin, 0 is absolute zero, and it scales with Celsius/Centigrade because anchoring it to water just makes sense.

        Fahrenheit is fucking silly and people only defend it because it’s what they were familiar with growing up, so they teach the next generation the same thing, thus perpetuating the cycle of tradition for the sake of tradition.

          • Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            9 months ago

            There is a theoretical max temperature, the Planck Temperature ≈ 1.416 x 10^42 K. It’s the temperature at which the wavelength of emitted light is the Planck length.

            Basically, a system at planck temperature probably would consist of many tiny black holes, and adding energy to said system would create a larger black hole, thereby lowering the temperature.

            • Steve Dice@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              9 months ago

              That sounds like a misconception based on the misconception that the Planck Length is the smallest distance possible. Admittedly, I dropped out of physics 10 years ago so I might have no idea what I’m talking about.

              • Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                9 months ago

                The idea is that the tiny black holes are planck scale and they evaporate before they get anywhere near each other. Picture this:

                It takes 10^20 Planck lengths to equal the diameter of a proton. It takes 10^20 protons to equal the diameter of the earth. And it takes 10^20 earths to equal the diameter of the observable universe.

              • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                9 months ago

                Simplified: A black hole is the result of density – how much mass you cram into how little space. If something is heavy enough, even light passing near it gets pulled in and swallowed, so there’s some area where no light escapes: a black hole.

                The difficulty is that you need a lot of gravity to bend the course of light. Gravity gets stronger the closer you get to the center, so at a certain distance, it will be strong enough no matter how little mass the object has.

                But most objects are simply too large: Light will bounce off without ever getting that close to the center. You’d need to squeeze them together real hard to make them small enough, but there are other forces trying to keep them in shape that will resist you.

                What you mean with “a whole lot of stuff” is the way more stable black holes work in space: A bunch of stuff so heavy that its own gravity is stronger than the forces trying to keep shape. If it’s strong enough, it can pull itself together so close that it gets smaller than that distance. Thus, there’s now an area around it where light can be trapped.

                If you involve quantum physics, things get fucky, and supposedly there actually is some radiation still escaping, which is what the other post referred to, but I’m out of my depth there. There are also different types of black holes with their own complications, a bunch of details I skipped and a lot more I don’t even know.

                Space is awesome and big and full of nothing and tons of tiny, really fascinating bits of not-nothing sprinkled in, and we could spend our entire lives studying it and never know just how much we don’t.

      • Iunnrais@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        9 months ago

        I agree with you, except that I think the time system is great. It was deliberately designed to be maximally divisible, and makes a lot of sense in that manner. 12 hours of daylight— a highly divisible number, with 60 small (minuscule, or “minute”) divisions of the hour, which is even MORE divisible than 12. Then when time keeping got more accurate, they added a second division of 60 more parts, and… well, called ‘em seconds.

        Basically, 12 and 60 are just so divisible they make really good bases.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        huh? how is the freezing point and boiling point of water made up? how is the temperature of the human body better in any way?

        The freezing and boiling points of water are by far the most logical reference points since anyone who wants to calibrate a thermometer will have access to water, and needs only go to the nearest ocean and bring some water to freezing and then boiling and making marks at each.

        Celsius is the precise opposite of random.

      • ThunderComplex@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        9 months ago

        No mate look on the right side, the number 20 is repeated. Ye imperial units are fucked but we are not at a point where 20 Celsius is equal to 2 different Fahrenheit values.

        • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          9 months ago

          look on the right side

          Thanks! I looked at the wrong side at first

          No, I was just kidding, including the first comment. Both sides are messed up, it was a variation of the “anything but metric” meme.

  • BootLoop@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    What use is the Fahrenheit measurement though? I thought only one or two countries use it.

    • Routhinator
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      9 months ago

      US and … maybe Israel? Those are the two countries that use the US “Simple English” while the rest of us know what a U is for and how to say Z… so if they also both used F that would track.

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    9 months ago

    In Celsius it is chirps in 8 seconds + 5 (Dolbear’s Law), but if you listen a single “Chirpffffffsss”, than better stay at home

      • Zerush@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        As always, metrics with clear rules are always better as random metrics by bodyparts of an King in the past, apart avoiding errors. Ask the NASA, crashing 2 Mars probes using the Imperial system.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    9 months ago

    I was trying to think of any situation where this would be useful and the only thing I come up with is a way to keep kids occupied during a camping trip.