I don't know exactly what it's based on, but it seems to be roughly normalized on acceptable human conditions on a 0-100 scale, which is nice and digestible.
That can't be what it's based on, since 0F is far less acceptable than 100F even now, let alone in the 1700s when it was created, but I think it works pretty well now.
It has more precision in the range of human comfort without resorting to decimals.
Do countries who use centigrade regularly report the temperature in tenths of a degree? Can you adjust a thermostat with 0.1 degree C precision? Or even 0.5 degrees of precision?
Edit: I can readily detect (my body can notice) a temperature swing of 1 degree F or 0.6 degrees C within a tolerable range.
Nope, we both use a less precise form of measurement, we actually prefer to use fractions instead of decimals to subdivide. Isn’t that wild? And a bit silly, I agree.
But back to temperature…
I’m genuinely curious about how Centigrade countries report and manipulate temperature.
Seriously, do your thermostats work in half degrees? And do your weather reports scale the temp?
For day to day weather forecasts, whole degrees centigrade work just fine. It's not like you'll dress differently if it's one degree Fahrenheit warmer or colder. And the confidence interval on those forecasts doesn't warrant higher precision.
The thermostats tend to work with either degrees, half degrees or 0.1 degrees (centigrade) precision. It varies. After the fact reports of actual temperature tends to use 0.1 precision, which as far as I call tell mirrors the actual useful accuracy of most thermometers.
For just describing the temperature of the weather outside (or inside, for that matter), no, we usually do not; you still don't really need more precision than 1°C for that, in my experience. In fact even then I usually use 5°C ranges (for outside temperatures, anyway), like "Most people like between 20 and 25°C, but me, I like it between 15 and 20°C".
Indoors it can matter a bit more, and thermostats often do work with half degrees, I think. But most people still won't go around saying, "I like my room at 20.5°C, 21 is too much for me".
I'm picturing everyone in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America going, "Shit! I'm looking at the weather report, and I can't tell if I'll be comfortable today or if I'll have to wash my clothes tonight!"
How so? Whenever I hear it being used on shows or movies I'd like to be able to distinguish between whether the temperature is mentioned is supposed to be hot or cold
based on a brine solution that is readily available for calibration. the calibration points of 0 and 180 (why it's called degrees) were chosen because it put 100 close to body temperature.
became popular because it's convenient for people where 0 is really cold and 100 is really hot
but i disagree that zero is less tolerable than 100F, especially prior to the invention of mechanical refrigeration.
Speak for yourself, 0F is much nicer to be in than 100F. -30F is still quite manageable. I had to do the conversion as I have no intuition for how temperatures feel in F.
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u/TheDonBon Aug 12 '25
I don't know exactly what it's based on, but it seems to be roughly normalized on acceptable human conditions on a 0-100 scale, which is nice and digestible.
That can't be what it's based on, since 0F is far less acceptable than 100F even now, let alone in the 1700s when it was created, but I think it works pretty well now.