I'm American and most people I know agree the imperial system is idiotic.
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· 6 years ago
While I agree the metric system is easier, the imperial system also works fine, it’s not really that difficult to understand, though it would be more sensible for everyone to use the same system. What I can’t wrap my head around, however, is Fahrenheit
Originally 96F was average human body temperature and 0F was the freezing temperature of some specific mixture of salts in water in order to replicate something like the lowest recorded temperature in Fahrenheit's hometown.
The reason why the exact numbers seem so pointless now is because when using the freezing and boiling points as water for reference points for temperature scale became popular Fahrenheit was adjusted so the freezing point of water is exactly 32F and the boiling point is exactly 212F.
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· 6 years ago
I get that the standards for 0F and 100F aren’t random (I believe 100F was the average body temperature of a horse?) but I find it slightly odd to base a system which will be used by many people (though I don’t know if that was his original intent) on something so specific as the lowest recorded temperature in one village. Also, what did the people in Fahrenheit’s village use to measure his lowest recorded temperature? Was it Celsius?
I've heard that using that winter temperature has something to do with trying to minimize how often people had to use negative numbers on the scale.
As for the temperature in the village, it wasn't measured itself, it was approximated using that brine (it has a self-stabilizing temperature, or something), then used as a reference point to create the scale.
The reason why the exact numbers seem so pointless now is because when using the freezing and boiling points as water for reference points for temperature scale became popular Fahrenheit was adjusted so the freezing point of water is exactly 32F and the boiling point is exactly 212F.
As for the temperature in the village, it wasn't measured itself, it was approximated using that brine (it has a self-stabilizing temperature, or something), then used as a reference point to create the scale.