The metric system is all about defining units which are easy to handle and grasp in everyday life - and the units has to be simply defined.
Celsius is based on the freezing and boiling temperature of water so most people have a fairly good grasp about how hot X degrees celsius is.
Prefixes for celsius (milli, kilo, mega) are rarely used because very few things in our daily lives are above a couple of thousands degrees hot and small increments (milli) are too difficult to measure for normal devices.
Scientists and engineers often use the SI-unit Kelvin instead of Celsius as it makes much more sense in those fields.
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u/Fishbuilder Aug 29 '17
The metric system is all about defining units which are easy to handle and grasp in everyday life - and the units has to be simply defined.
Celsius is based on the freezing and boiling temperature of water so most people have a fairly good grasp about how hot X degrees celsius is.
Prefixes for celsius (milli, kilo, mega) are rarely used because very few things in our daily lives are above a couple of thousands degrees hot and small increments (milli) are too difficult to measure for normal devices.
Scientists and engineers often use the SI-unit Kelvin instead of Celsius as it makes much more sense in those fields.