this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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top 49 comments
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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 167 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Tell me that you are American without telling me you are American

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Ok.

"Hey. Come over and get some BBQ and food that doesn't look like sad beans. We can talk about how boring a soccer game is when one team leads and they just play keep away for 40 minutes. Man, this corn on the cob is so good. Sure glad my teeth are straight so I can eat it super easy. Anyone else enjoy having a complete global dominance on movies, tv, and pop culture? How about the internet?"

[–] ARk@lemm.ee 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] bermuda 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're right though, soccer is boring

[–] Estt@lemmy.today 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The most watched sport in the world is boring? Most of the world beg to differ...

[–] bermuda 2 points 8 months ago

Well good thing I don't care what they think

[–] ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

You’d never hear any Americans talking about soccer unless their kids were playing in a Rec league

[–] eldain@feddit.nl 55 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Kelvin is for scientists.

Celsius is for people.

Fahrenheit is a translation layer between Celsius and Americans. All their weather stations have been Celsius for ages, it's a societal decision to use an arbitrary unit instead. The "69F censoring" which turned out to be a rounding artefact illustrated that nicely. Their government could change that, power to them that they decide not to 🤷‍♂️

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 8 months ago

fahrenheit is literally defined by celsius at this point, afaik celsius is literally the official standard of the united states but everyone just.. keeps using fahrenheit anyways

[–] amio@kbin.social 33 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

How very American.

I suppose it is how people feel, just, y'know, the roughly 4-5% of people who happen to already use that temperature scale. Shocker, that.

[–] I_am_10_squirrels 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think if Fahrenheit as percent hot. 0F is zero percent hot, 100F is 100 percent hot. Most people are comfortable with the weather between 60-80 percent hot.

[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 14 points 8 months ago

I see a lot of people that say Fahrenheit makes sense if you think about it as a percentage, but i have no idea what "60% hot" means

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I think the focus of this is just where the origins of the units are derived. Fahrenheit was invented at a hospital for identifying patients outside of the normal range, Celsius was invented based on the liquid range of water, and Kelvin was invented based on when matter stops

[–] amio@kbin.social 5 points 8 months ago

The focus of it is what you are used to.
All scales are basically created equal - they must be, since they measure the same thing and scale the same way. (No pun intended.)
The only difference there can ever be between C/K/F (or R for that matter) is multiplying by one constant and/or adding another.

Yanks use Fahrenheit, grow up with it, and see it used every day. Therefore it is intuitive and logical. To them.
The vast majority of people on Earth - about 95% - actually don't, so it isn't.

That makes the phrasing and underlying assumption pretty characteristically American, and tempting to poke some gentle fun at.

[–] XM34@feddit.de 4 points 8 months ago

Fahrenheit was invented at a hospital for identifying patients outside of the normal range...

0°F is outside the normal human temperature range? No shit!

You're talking a bunch of bullcrap! Fahrenheit was developed by a German Scientist and he just chose two measurements that were halfway decent to reproduce. That's all there is to it. Got nothing to do with hospitals.

[–] Shurimal@kbin.social 33 points 8 months ago

With Celsius it's all nice and round numbers unlike the mess called fahrenheit:

0°C—black ice, snow, be careful on the road and you probably want to wear gloves and a hat
0...10°C—a bit chilly, but you can leave your hat home
10...20°C—pleasant, but not quite tee-and-shorts yet
20...30°C—nice summer weather
30...40°C—holy crap it's hot!
40...50°C—are you fucking kidding me?
50+°C—my proteins are starting to denature...
100°C—good sauna
110°C—finns think it's a good sauna
120+°C—finns think it's getting a bit too hot in the sauna. Italians tend to vaporize in sauna (speaking from experience)
...
0...-10°C—a pleasant winter weather
-10...-20°C—getting a bit frosty
-20...-30°C—finns think it's a pleasant winter weather
-40°C—vodka freezes. Russians and finns agree it's getting a bit frosty
-50°C—getting a little hard to start your Uazik in the morning in Siberia due to engine oil solidifying
-60°C—researchers in Antarctica all agree it's getting a bit frosty and someone should close the window

[–] getaway@lemmynsfw.com 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If fahrenheit was how people felt, then room temperature would be 0 because that's the ideal temperature. Negative fahrenheit would be too cold, positive to warm.

[–] ferralcat@monyet.cc 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

100 is hot out and 0 is cold. That's not crazy. 35 being hot out is pretty arbitrary for day to day use. But if your job is boiling water every day, it's probably not the best.

[–] Rediphile@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago

The freezing point of water seems a hell of a lot more relevant to what humans consider 'cold'...which is why it's the zero. The boiling point of water isn't the zero in Celsius after all.

Also 'cold' as a concept is often represented with symbols related to frozen water such as snow flakes and icicles.

[–] Squirrel@thelemmy.club 26 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Most people are inherently biased towards their chosen system. A "water scale" doesn't make sense to fahrenheit users, and a "human scale" is dismissed as even existing by the Celsius users. But hey, if you want to fight, have at it. It's annoying and pointless, but that's what the internet is for.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

“human scale” is dismissed as even existing by the Celsius users

Celsius user here.
I find "I'm more used to it, therefore it makes more intuitive sense to me" is a perfectly understandable argument.

The problem with the human scale argument is that it makes it sound completely arbitrary.
To a human there is no objective difference between -1F, 0F or +1F. They are all about the same degree of "cold".

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

i mean a lot of measurements are arbitrary necause their manmade. thats creation of measurements in a nutshell. they exist to give people context to conpare to. time is a manmade construct, unit of length is a manmade construct. unit of weight is a manmade construct.

for instance with 1 kilo, tell me the last time a regular person had platinum-iridium ingot. its completely arbitrary.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago

tell me the last time a regular person had platinum-iridium ingot

What, you don't?

But yeah, I agree, units are made up. I mean, why is the boiling point at 100C and not any other number? Someone made it up.
I'm just saying the argument "0F is really cold" is just as true as -10F is really cold or +10F is really cold.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Did it never occur to you that Celsius is basically Kelvin with the zero point moved to human reference?

Human reference because >50% of our body is water. We are essentially water bags.

[–] falcunculus@jlai.lu 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is interesting but not really justified historically. Celsius predates the concept of absolute zero, and water is very important to our world, not just ourselves.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I was replying to a (now gone) post on how Kelvin is for science, Fahrenheit for humans ,and Celsius is useless. It should give a perspective how to get from Kelvin to Celsius, not give a wildly off-topic history lesson.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

how do you calibrate a fahrenheit thermometer? With celsius it's hilariously trivial, if the thermometer says it's about 0 when you see water freeze, it's correct enough for everyday use.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago

You put a normal Celsius thermometer next to it and apply maths.

[–] exocrinous@lemm.ee 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nah. Only 50F to 115f is usable. What kind of weird ass datapoints are those? I mean 10C to 45C are just as random, but at least it aligns with something practical. At least I understand that 200C is twice what it takes to boil water. I have no idea how hot 400F is supposed to be.

[–] Floey@lemm.ee 18 points 8 months ago

"Twice what it takes to boil water" doesn't make any sense.

[–] xor@infosec.pub 20 points 8 months ago

water is a molecule

[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius is quite easy. All you need to do is:

import math
import random
import time

def obtain_temperature_scale():
    temperature_scales = ["Fahrenheit", "Celsius", "Kelvin", "Rankine", "Réaumur", "Newton", "Delisle", "Rømer"]
    return random.choice(temperature_scales)

def create_cryptic_prompts():
    cryptic_prompts = [
        "Unveil the hidden truth within the scorching embers.",
        "Decode the whispers of the arctic winds.",
        "Unravel the enigma of thermal equilibrium.",
        "Unlock the secrets of the thermometric realm."
    ]
    return random.choice(cryptic_prompts)

def await_user_input(prompt):
    print(prompt)
    return float(input("Enter the temperature value: "))

def dramatic_pause():
    print("Calculating...")
    time.sleep(random.uniform(1.5, 3.5))

def convert_to_celsius(fahrenheit):
    return (fahrenheit - 32) * (5/9)

def main():
    temperature_scale = obtain_temperature_scale()
    if temperature_scale == "Fahrenheit":
        cryptic_prompt = create_cryptic_prompts()
        fahrenheit_temp = await_user_input(cryptic_prompt)
        dramatic_pause()
        celsius_temp = convert_to_celsius(fahrenheit_temp)
        print(f"The temperature in Celsius is: {celsius_temp:.2f}°C")
    else:
        print("This program only accepts Fahrenheit temperatures.")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 11 points 8 months ago

def dramatic_pause():

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"Human scale". Snort. What bollocks.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tango@lemmy.ml 11 points 8 months ago

Most heated post on Lemmy

[–] rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There is absolutely no reason for Fahrenheit. It made sense before there was Celsius, but it doesn't make sense today.

[–] FUBAR@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

At this point, there’s no harm in using Fahrenheit. We can convert it to celcius. But please use a sane date format.

[–] TurtleTourParty@midwest.social 7 points 8 months ago
[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 8 months ago
[–] yamapikariya@lemmyfi.com 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)
[–] julianh@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] I_am_10_squirrels 3 points 8 months ago

An abomination

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 7 points 8 months ago

"On a scale of -20 ➡️ 40, how hot are you?" Isn't that hard to comprehend

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 months ago

Forget rage bait, we're into straight up "gr 7 science" bait territory now.