this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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[โ€“] Cethin@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Fahrenheit was set to 0 on the lowest temperature someone could achieve at time. And 100 was set to the body temperature of the human body. Totally two comparable points of measurement.

It's not the coldest someone could achieve at the time. It was chosen because it's a reliable low temperature that will consistently be produced by a particular brine solution.

Celsius uses the melting point of water as 0.and then uses, revolutionary, the same water when it changes its state from liquid to gas.

That doesn't really make it better, does it? How does that make it better? It sounds like it makes it better, but functionally what's better about it? What functionally is made superior by defining it as two stages of one thing rather than stages of different things? As long as the temperatures are reliably reproduced, it's functionally the same. Sure, being a measure of water does make it more useful when you care about water (at sea level, and only at sea level), as I said before. It doesn't generally make it better though.

[โ€“] Johanno@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

It is better because it uses 2 times water as reference point.

Not one thing and then a completely different one.

We could for example set the 0 degrees at the freezing point of alcohol and 100 at the boiling point.

Or 0 at the boiling point of argon and 100 at the temperature it turns into plasma.

Both of these fictional scales are better than Fahrenheit.