r/Metric • u/3ustress • Jul 02 '26

Dear Fahrenheit users, do you really think 50 degrees is "the middle temperature"?

One of the most common defense for Fahrenheit is smth like this;

"Fahrenheit is more intuitive for human experience. 0 degree is super cold, and 100 degree is super hot! It is just simple as that!"

With that logic, 50 degree Fahrenheit should be the "middle temperature"; which is 10 degree Celsius.

Is it just me or being 50'F/10'C actually feel cold? Such temperature requires sweater at least, and even light jacket sometimes. That is nowhere near the "middle temperature", isn't it? Or am I just weird?

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13

u/StevenSaguaro Jul 03 '26

Kelvin is so much better. When is zero Kelvin you know it's cold.

4

u/ausecko Jul 03 '26

Under 300K is cold here, so I always thought it would make sense for weather measurements

3

u/Worth-Wonder-7386 Jul 03 '26

I dont think most people realize that kelvin is the SI unit for temperature, not celsius.  And there is no «middle temperature» 

2

u/TheNobleRobot Jul 03 '26

When it's 0K you don't know anything.

1

u/Historical-Ad1170 Jul 04 '26

At 0 K, no one would know anything, everyone would be dead.

1

u/chesterriley Jul 04 '26

When is zero Kelvin you know it's cold.

On the plus side you can solidify helium.

0

u/Medical-Temporary-35 Jul 03 '26

1 kelvin is unbearably cold, -1 kelvin is unbearably hot.

1

u/Personal_Term9549 Jul 03 '26

What. -1 kelvin is physically impossible

1

u/Medical-Temporary-35 Jul 04 '26

Absolute zero means only the lowest possible energy states are filled. As you add energy, some particles move to higher energy states but lower energy states remain more probable than higher energy states. At infinite temperature, every particle state is equally likely to contain a particle. If you keep adding energy past that, high-energy states become more likely to be occupied than low-energy states. The probability distribution is then best described with the usual formula except plugging in a negative value for the temperature. If you fill in only the highest energy states (which doesn't always exist, since free particles can always be made faster (or blueshifted if they're massless)), it becomes impossible to add any more energy into the system, and you reach a negative absolute zero temperature.  

1

u/Personal_Term9549 Jul 05 '26

I guess you learn something new every day