Puzzle Description Suppressed:Click below to view spoilers

#1: Brian Bellis (mootpoint) on Mar 25, 2019 [SPOILER]

Comment Suppressed:Click below to view spoilers

Fun solve.

Comment Suppressed:Click below to view spoilers

Neat picto.

Okay, I'm probably about to start something...

I've always liked the zero to one hundred thing that Celsius has going on but I do like the smaller divisions of Fahrenheit. Too bad the Celsius scale wasn't set up from zero for freezing water to two hundred for boiling.

Here's a trivia question for you.

At what temperature do the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales have the same value?

Don't just Google it. Try to figure it out.

In scientific terms, neither is superior. In technological terms, Celsius is superior as it uses base 10 units that are easier to integrate and not screw up. In human-scale use I think Fahrenheit is more intuitive.

Celsius believers make the argument that you cannot tell the difference from x degrees F to x+1 degrees. That's missing the point. In Fahrenheit, human-scale temperatures are generally given in 5 degree increments. "'It'll be about 65 degrees today,' he said, optimistically."

Five degrees apart in Celsius would be about 9 degrees F. That means the 5 degree increments of Celsius are too far apart while the individual degrees are too close together (only 1.8 degrees F).

E.g. 65F = 18.3C. So if you say either 15C (59F) or 20C (68F), you have lost a lot of precision. Whereas if you were to say 18C you have an annoying level of precision that's more than is needed.

If Celsius had 200 degrees between freezing and boiling, it would be just as useful as F on the human scale, but would lose a little of its foolproof-ness on the technological front. Of course, it could be worse. Celsius' first scale had 0=boiling and 100=freezing. And Fahrenheit did not choose 212 as boiling. He actually had a 100-degree scale, too. It's just that he put 100=human body temperature (and missed by a smidge).

All in all, it's all a bunch of arbitrariness. A scale that starts in the middle is a weird way to do things. Of course, when temperature was starting to be standardized ("but how do we compare the coldness of a brass monkey and a witch's teat?") there was no way to know that there was a minimum temperature, much less how to figure out what it could be.

I happen to know the crossing point of the two already, but it is easy to find for those that know the conversion formula (F = 9/5 * C + 32) and basic algebra.

I know it too, because I live with it and sometimes have personal experience of it during a Canadian winter.

I went all through school in inches/feet/yards, quarts and gallons (Imperial, not US), miles, and Fahrenheit. We learned metric measurement in high school but only as a scientific or mathematical exercise. Canada went metric in 1975. Over the years I came to terms with kilometres because the distance and speed limit signs are all around me and I drive in km every day, and I know a litre when I see one and a kilogram when I feel it because the labels have been around for more than forty years. But I still think in feet and inches, not metres and centimetres, my scale is set to pounds, not kg, and in all these years I have never gotten used to Celsius. I immediately mentally convert temperature into Fahrenheit, which I call "real degrees." I never have reason to convert from F to C. When I used to spend part of winter in Florida I'd tell my friends it was 84°F and they knew exactly how hot it was. My children and grandkids had to do the algebra to relate it to the Celsius they know.

I once saw Bob Hope being interviewed on late-night US TV, complaining about how cold it had been in early November when he was in Toronto to do a show. Someone had told him it was 8°, and he wondered aloud how cold it might get in Canada if it was already as low as 8° before it was even winter. Myself, I wondered how he couldn't feel the difference between the 8°F that he assumed he was told and the 46°F that 8°C actually is.

Love this series! Thanks Joe!
It took me some years to get used to F temperatures, now Im all set.
Measurements, is a whole different thing, my head is fixed on metrics.

I seem to recall it was -40. Such a weird, cumbersome conversion. :)

-40 is correct Kristen.

Show: Spoilers

Goto next topic

You must register and log in to be able to participate in this discussion.