It was probably in a high school or college class. The steam and bubbles are a dead giveaway. However, things are a little more complicated when it comes to measuring ambient temperature.
This is the only time most of us non-scientific folks care about temperature. Celsius is great for measuring the temperature of water. Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Fahrenheit — a degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale.
A precise reading of temperature is important to us because just a little variation can result in a perceivable level of discomfort.
Most of us are easily affected by even slight changes in the thermometer, and the Fahrenheit scale is more sensitive to those changes. And when every drop of fuel oil counts against that gauge reading, using a temperature scale with a higher degree of accuracy is extremely important when programming your thermostat.
Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Virtually every country on earth aside from the United States measures temperature in Celsius. This makes sense; Celsius is a reasonable scale that assigns freezing and boiling points of water with round numbers, zero and In Fahrenheit, those are, incomprehensibly, 32 and This isn't just an aesthetic issue.
America's stubborn unwillingness to get rid of Fahrenheit temperatures is part of its generally dumb refusal to change over to the metric system, which has real-world consequences. Why does the United States have such an antiquated system of measurement? You can blame two of history's all-time greatest villains: British colonialism and Congress.
Back in the early 18th century, the Fahrenheit measurement system was actually pretty useful. As a young man, Fahrenheit became obsessed with thermometers. This may seem weird, but measuring temperature was a big problem at the time.
No one had really invented a consistent, reliable way to measure temperature objectively. As an early inventor of the thermometer as we know it, Fahrenheit naturally had to put something on them to mark out different temperatures.
The scale he used became what we now call Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit set zero at the lowest temperature he could get a water and salt mixture to reach. He then used a very slightly incorrect measurement of the average human body temperature, 96 degrees, as the second fixed point in the system.
The resulting schema set the boiling point of water at degrees, and the freezing point at 32 degrees. In , Fahrenheit was inducted into the British Royal Society, at the time a preeminent Western scientific organization, and his system caught on in the British Empire. As Britain conquered huge chunks of the globe in the 18th and 19th centuries, it brought the Fahrenheit system and some other peculiar Imperial measurements, such as feet and ounces along with it.
Fahrenheit became a standard temperature in much of the globe. The Anglophone world ended up being an outlier. By the midth century , most of the world adopted Celsius , the popular means of measuring temperature in the modern metric system. Celsius was invented in by Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius. Around , Celsius was integrated into the metric system — itself an outgrowth of the French revolution's desire to unify the country at the national level.
In , the United Kingdom began metrication or the process of converting all measures to the metric system. Although it has not yet accomplished full metrication, the modern United Kingdom is largely metric. Almost every other former British colony followed suit. Some did so before even the UK for example, India , while others did so subsequently e. These changes, which occurred at around the same time, encouraged the United States to explore adopting the metric system.
It made it logical to move, both because the metric system is more obvious and because adopting the same system as other nations would greatly facilitate scientific cooperation. The Metric Conversion Law was implemented by Congress and was intended to kickstart the metrication process.
It established a Metric Board to oversee the changeover. The law failed miserably. The people had a large voice in the subject since it made metrication elective rather than forced. Many individuals also did not want to learn new temperature or weight systems.
According to Zengerle, organized labor also opposed it so that workers would not have to retrain to understand the new measures. In , President Reagan dissolved the Metric Board, leaving its work in chaos. The law's poor execution by Congress assured that America would continue to measure temperature in Fahrenheit. Today, the United States is practically alone in the world in refusing to use the metric system, with only Burma and Liberia joining it Burma announced its intent to metricate in I know it is easy to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, and Fahrenheit to Celsius using a formula, but this will be time consuming.
The odd measures frequently employed in the United States, especially Fahrenheit, are harmful to the country's scientific establishment, children, and, most likely, companies. Susannah Locke makes a compelling argument for Celsius and the rest of the metric system, but here's a quick refresher. Because metric scales are simpler, fundamental computations are easier and hence less error-prone.
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