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Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: KeithHernandez on December 14, 2007, 06:01:51 pm
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The other day me and a friend were talking about this, and I can't get much online so I thought I would ask you all.
I am down with the metric system and all (don't know if that is related to c v. f), but it seems to me like Fahrenheit is, well, more accurate than Celsius. So why is Celsius so popular? You are losing accuracy, right? I mean, based on the scale. Also, in a thing like science, where it seems like it is a thing to be hell of accurate, why do they use Celsius? Just because of the Kelvin scale? I am not saying Fahrenheit is perfect, but it seems like if you are going to go through the trouble of switching shit up, a better scale could be made than either.
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Well, I mean, accuracy is kinda relative, isn't it?
If you're in the hardcore science, you have awesomely-powered measuring equipment so you can measure down to the hundredths and thousandths (and so on) of either scale and still eventually reach equal accuracy.
And even if F is slightly more accurate for more common applications... for you or for me, there's no functional difference between 45 degrees F and 46 degrees F or.... 15 degrees C and 16 degrees C in 99.999% of the cases and... in the few cases where it does matter? We can get our hands on more sensitive equipment to make up for it on those limited basisesesisises.
Basii?
F and C are both fundamentally arbitrary, why go to the trouble of inventing a third arbitrary system?
Most science and the rest of the world can use C and... the rough conversion'll still work for normal non-science people still hanging onto the English system until... eventually, inexorably, F shrinks away.
No point in just making up another one and just confusing everybody more, if it's essentially an arbitrary means of measure for any common usages.
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I still have no idea what normal room temperature in Celsius would be. From my EMT training, I know that 37C is normal human body temperature. I am definitely down with the metric system, and I think it would be more efficient if everyone in the world used the same standard. I see little need for another arbitrary system.
Also, KH... Did you know that you can use decimal points with the Celsius system? That means it's just as accurate as any other measuring stick. I don't see what the big deal is.
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In reading this thread, my question was why the scale starts arbitarily with zero at some point, with observable phenomena occuring at 32 and 212 degrees. So I asked Wikipedia.
Quoth Wikipedia:
"There are a few competing versions of the story of how Fahrenheit came to devise his temperature scale. According to Fahrenheit himself in an article he wrote in 1724 [1] he determined three fixed points of temperature. The zero point is determined by placing the thermometer in a mixture of ice, water, and sodium chloride (or sea salt). This is a type of frigorific mixture. The mixture automatically stabilizes its temperature at 0 degrees F. He then put an alcohol or mercury thermometer into the mixture and let the liquid in the thermometer descend to its lowest point. The second point is the 32nd degree found by mixing ice and water without the salt. His third point, the 96th degree, was the level of the liquid in the thermometer when held in the mouth or under the armpit. Fahrenheit noted that, using this scale, mercury boils at around 600 degrees.
His measurements were not entirely accurate; by his original scale, the actual melting and boiling points would have been noticeably different from 32 °F and 212 °F. Some time after his death, it was decided to recalibrate the scale with 32 °F and 212 °F as the exact melting and boiling points of plain water. That change was made to easily convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa, with a simple formula. This change also explains why the body temperature once taken as 96 °F by Fahrenheit is today taken by many as 98.6 °F (it is a direct conversion of 37 °C), although giving the value as 98 °F would be more accurate"
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And even if F is slightly more accurate for more common applications... for you or for me, there's no functional difference between 45 degrees F and 46 degrees F or.... 15 degrees C and 16 degrees C in 99.999% of the cases and... in the few cases where it does matter? We can get our hands on more sensitive equipment to make up for it on those limited basisesesisises.
Basii?
Try "Bases". With a long 'e'. "Beh-sees"
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Maybe this is the stuff of legend, but I head that Fahrenheit chose the 0 and 100 points to cover the range of "typical" seasonal weather for Europe over the course of a year.
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That could be a place to start, but since Mr. F did Science and needed to calibrate temperature measuring devices, I'm thinking he used the sodium chloride/ice, ice and boiling water since they are repeatable phenomena.
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If you're in the hardcore science, you have awesomely-powered measuring equipment so you can measure down to the hundredths and thousandths (and so on) of either scale and still eventually reach equal accuracy.
Yeah I was going to put that but forgot. Still though.
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I guess it shows how outdated the books my elementary school had, but when I was first introduced to Celsius, I knew it as Centigrade. Since that's what I was taught at a young impressionable age, the term comes to my lips faster than Celsius.
A quick Wikipedia search shows that term died out in the mid 40's. I imagine that it was an instant change for active scientists, but it took a while for it to catch on for grade school teachers in Eastern WA.
I had to Wikipedia it, because while I don't perform much of the alchemical sciences in my day to day life, the confusion of the two terms "Celsius" and "Centigrade" made me worry that all this time, there was a difference, and when I use the term Centigrade, someone might look down on me as a low person of no account.
In reality, they may suspect me of being a time traveler, or perhaps the unlucky subject of your average time tunnel or neighborhood wormhole.
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Maybe this is the stuff of legend, but I head that Fahrenheit chose the 0 and 100 points to cover the range of "typical" seasonal weather for Europe over the course of a year.
I heard that he hated negative numbers. Hated them to hell. So he chose 0 as a point so low that encountering numbers below it would be rare and extra scary.
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I had to Wikipedia it, because while I don't perform much of the alchemical sciences in my day to day life, the confusion of the two terms "Celsius" and "Centigrade" made me worry that all this time, there was a difference, and when I use the term Centigrade, someone might look down on me as a low person of no account.
Its a perfectly cromulent word. It simply means "100 steps", which describes the temperature scale devised by Celsius, and serendipitously begins with the same capital letter. I would imagine for those with a speech impediment, Centigrade is easier to say, having only one sibilant rather than 3.
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In celcius water freezes at 0 and boils at 100. This makes crazy sense to me. But I can see the attractiveness of spreading normal temperatures out over a longer scale.
Maybe the reason C is the standard in scientific stuff is because science and engineering often involve looking at temperatures way outside the average human experience?
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I'd been told once by a teacher that 32 was the number of girlfriends he had had, and 212 was the number of times he'd had sex at a certain point. Because he was a nerd, and kept a tally.
It's one of those stories that can't be true, no matter how much you want it to be.
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it seems to me like Fahrenheit is, well, more accurate than Celsius. So why is Celsius so popular?
Yeah, it is because of the Kelvin scale. Chemistry/physics use the Kelvin scale factored into several formulas, and Celsius is the same scale. It just tries to be divisible by 10, since that is the selling point of the whole metric system.
A change in temperature in C is equal to a change in temperature in K, so the value can still be used in equations. Plus, the thermometers used in chemistry don't need to use the whole Kelvin range, so Celsius it is. All those thermometers have Fahrenheit scales on them, anyway.
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I heard that Fahrenheit wanted normal human body temperature to be 100, but he had a slight fever when he was taking measurements, and therefore ended up being 1.4 degrees off.
These are fascinating stories. It's amazing how the lore differs.
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probably its because i am not understanding something, but your question doesn't make sense to me. what do you mean by saying that the f scale is more accurate than the celsius scale? just because there are 100 degrees celcius to 180 f? if this is the case, is there any reason you dont want to use fractions? for example, linnea might be curious to know that in russia normal human body temperature is said to be 36.6 C. 37 would be a slight fever
as far as i can tell, neither is more accurate because there's a one-to-one correspondence between the two scales which you can figure out from F = (180/100)C + 32
i dont think celcius is an international standard because of kelvin scale. im pretty sure the kelvin scale was derived from the celsius scale. you guys ever heard of the rankine scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_scale)?
my best guess for why celsius was adopted as an international standard is because of how convenient the reference points of water freezing and water boiling are. this is because of two things: water is really abundant and easy to come accross, and during these phase changes its temperature remains constant until the phase change is complete, so that you can take your time to measure the reference temperatures. in this way celcius is more convenient than the f scale, i think
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Well, in the space between freezing and boiling, there are 180 lines of demarkin' on F and 100 lines of demarkin' on C.
And so... if you don't have fractions or decimals on hand, yeah, F is more "precise".
A lot of thermometers only go by degrees, no decimals, and so... yeah. On a cheap thermometer, F is theoretically more useful.
But... again... if you're doing something where a degree and a half's difference is so important, just get a better thermometer, either way.
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lol yeah i agree with your last sentence. two cheap thermometers are probably going to have a difference in their reading thats roughly as big as the precision you gain from having more notches :D i had to use three thermometers for an experiment at one point, and all three had a different reading in the same medium. as far as i can remember, in a water-and-ice bath, one read -1 C, one 0 C and one 3 C (!).
this precision thing still doesnt make much sense to me though. why can't you eyeball the scale in 0.5 degrees C for example :D voila - the celcius scale is now more precise. edit: my bad, this argument sucks :) i see what you mean
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This is probably less than astonishing, but it occurs to me that 180 degrees is half a circle - and that in Olden-Tymes such devices probably used a pointer going around a semicircle as the readout. There's some consonance with clock faces and trigonometric arcs that probably made the scale seem very intuitive to the adopters.
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authors, I do not understand any of what you just said.
if you can estimate to 1/2 of the measure indicated, wouldn't fahrenheit still be more visually accurate, since you could estimate to half a degree, just like celsius?
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sorry
i agree with lfm that both scales are adequate to get a rough idea of what temperature it is outside or what temperature your oven is or another practical matter. in these matters a difference of a degree is not much. and besides this, there are limits to how precise the thermometer itself is and how well it was calibrated.
but if we idealize the situation and say that we can measure a temperature to a large accuracy, im trying to say that i dont see how one is more precise than the other, because you can covert any measurment from one to the other.
if we accept that the two scales are equivalent in terms of how precise they are, the reason why celsius was adopted as an international standard is not that either is more precise. my best guess is that it was adopted because of the more convenient reference temperatures that were used to define the scale. as far as i can tell, this was what the original poster's question was about.
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This is probably less than astonishing, but it occurs to me that 180 degrees is half a circle - and that in Olden-Tymes such devices probably used a pointer going around a semicircle as the readout. There's some consonance with clock faces and trigonometric arcs that probably made the scale seem very intuitive to the adopters.
I like this idea better than the others. Lets start a whisper campaign for the semi circle hypothesis.
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This is a type of frigorific mixture.
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