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Most of us only care about air temperature, not water temperature. When was the last time you used a thermometer to measure water temperature?
"Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit—a 130-degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from -28.8 degrees to 43.3 degrees—a 72.1-degree range. This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale."
I have to go with C even though F is what I know best (US). C works better in formulas; physics and chemistry are generally metric and C based. Yes, you can convert them to F instead. The granularity argument is pretty baseless. You want more precision? Add another place to the right of the decimal. As others pointed out, for casual weather observations it is not a big deal. When used in weather it is rarely truly accurate anyway; move the thermometer location a stone's throw away and you will likely start getting slightly different readings.
Last edited by ReachTheBeach; 06-24-2015 at 06:54 AM..
I have to go with C even though F is what I know best (US). C works better in formulas; physics and chemistry are generally metric and C based.
Chemistry and Physics work even better with Kelvin degrees, which is also the official measure unit for temperature in the SI. In addition, a lot of formulas (the first I can think of, the definition of Entropy in thermodynamic) only work if the temperatures are expressed in Kelvin degrees. Anyway, this unity of measure is not so handful (with the freezing temperature of water = 273.15K and the boiling temperature =373.15K), so it is non so strange that nearly no one uses it in everyday life.
About the other measure units, I have the impression that the most of people tend to prefer the unit they are more used to. I'm not an exception, in fact I prefer °C (that in practice here in Italy is the only one we use).
Celcius. It makes far more sense, for the reasons others have stated...
Though in the UK I think it was only in the early 80's that celcius started being used in TV weather forecasts, so the older generation still do use fahrenheit. My Mum for example has no idea what 21C is & how warm that would feel, but 70F she does. The TV forecasters in the UK will actually say what the temperatures are in fahrenheit, though the maps only show celcius, as a lot of older people still only understand that...
Just curious do imperial countries use Rankine in science classes?
I imagine they all use Celsius or Kelvins depending on the science involved.
In the US, nobody uses Rankine for anything. The very few who have heard of it are "bookworms". Interestingly, US elementary and secondary schools (5-18 year olds) use Celsius but everyone learns Fahrenheit from family, friends and media and uses it anytime they aren't in school. In college, Celsius is used in some Classes and Kelvins in others.
Science uses Kelvin, not Celsius, because negative numbers associated with temperature are nonsensical in science.
As far as everyday temperatures, it's 6 of 1, and half dozen of the other... other than the fact that Fahrenheit is more precise as a whole number. When Canada switched to Celsius some 30 years ago there was a problem of comparing old records to new ones. The solution was to convert the old records (recorded to the nearest degree F) to the nearest 1/10th of a degree C. This in itself is unscientific because it shows a level of precision that isn't there. Furthermore, manual stations record the temperature to the nearest 0.5C, which is slightly more precise than the nearest 1 degree F, but it is less accurate.
Here's why. The thermometer only has marks to the nearest degree C, and the reader has to eyeball whether or not the temperature is at the 0.5 mark. Some operators simply just round to the nearest degree C, and most of the ones who do take the time to round to the nearest 0.5C have a significant bias toward rounded to the whole degree. In Fahrenheit all answers are rounded to the nearest whole degree so you don't get the same level of bias.
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As others pointed out, for casual weather observations it is not a big deal. When used in weather it is rarely truly accurate anyway; move the thermometer location a stone's throw away and you will likely start getting slightly different readings.
