Do Americans understand celsius?

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I have discussed the issue outside of WP with Americans who want the US to use celsius and they all think that the weatherman is the primary force supporting the continuation of fahrenheit. When the UK and Canada changed to celsius several decades ago weather reports were given in both celsius and fahrenheit. About 10 years later the younger generation taught celsius at school perceived fahrenheit as old currency.



It's not quite as clear as this because there are large numbers of recent immigrants in the US who are more familiar with celsius than fahrenheit and they probably talk to their kids at home using celsius even if they were born in the US. This is why I made reference to certain cities with a high proportion of foreigners being potentially more receptive to celsius.

Conversely, millions of parents in the UK and Canada talked to their kids in fahrenheit for many years after the country changed to celsius but they rarely followed in their footsteps.

Recent immigrants are rarely socially prominent individuals even if their numbers are large.

But yeah- if you made a concerted effort to get TV weatherpeople to give both temperature figures it would go a long way to push the country to a tipping point- I suppose.

Intellectually I see the benifits of celsius- the ease of digital. But emotionally im attached to Fahrenhiet. So I'm not a Celsius-Jihadist! They all can take their time converting.

It's not a question of being socially prominent. It's more a situation of voting with your wallet. If recent immigrants and celsius educated Americans are browsing through a store and have a choice of buying a food thermometer or thermostat in both celsius and fahrenheit versions then a good likelihood exists that many of them will buy the celsius version and eventually the market will adjust to reflect demand. The situation will be almost the opposite amongst retirees only familiar with fahrenheit. The demographics of the US vary from city to city and state to state which is why I mentioned local demand in certain areas.

In time could celsius consumer products become readily available in stores in say NYC, LA, or Seattle, but if you want one in Wyoming or some retirement city in Florida then you have to buy one on the internet?

Signs in stores are all in both Spanish, and in English. And even decades ago thermometers had both celsius and Fahrenheit. So would products that have just celsius sell Because of all the hispanic immigrants as well? I dunno. It would be kind of dumb to have celsius and NOT also put fahrenheit on products sold in america. Why loose one market just to get another market when you can just as easily pitch to both markets?

Looking down on people for not using Celsius is really dumb.

It's not like the metric system, where it makes conversion between larger and smaller units easier. There are no larger and smaller units for temperature!

The only benefit it has is that it has the mathematically nice property of 0 being water freezing and 100 being water boiling. But if you were really worried about mathematically nice units, you wouldn't use Celcius, you'd use Kelvin! So I don't understand what is supposed to be great about Celsius.

Kelvin still uses the Celsius sized degree. There is the Rankine scale which is also 0 at absolute 0 and uses the Faraheit sized degree.

ruveyn

Look, if you're looking for accuracy, theoretically, since between 0 and 1, there are infinite decimal numbers (or mathematically speaking, the set of (0,1) is uncountable - for proof, look at any math analysis book - I believe Cantor proved that), there is no comparison on whether system is more accurate. For example, you can have 10.0000000000 Celsius vs 50 Fahrenheit. Yes technically, Fahrenheit has a smaller measurement per degree, but who really cares based on that former argument aforementioned? Business who want to use a smaller LED screen to save a couple of cents? (Yeah, what about huge 8 LED displays? Well, get an LCD screen that size - it almost costs as much nowadays and it gives more display options (My option would say "It's F****** cold, or hot" just kidding), and even that; what is the difference of adding one more digit after a decimal point?) Geez!

Yes, I'm an American, and I use Fahrenheit, but I can convert most daily temperatures to Celsius if I want to; also, I'm not that smart. I would hope that most in my country could use an app or maybe a calculator to do the same thing. Here:

F = Temperature in Fahrenheit
C = Temperature in Celsius

F = 1.8 * C + 32 or C = ((F - 32) * 5) divided by 9 or for a rough estimate, C = (F - 32) *.5555555

And remember folks, always do what in the the parenthesis first. Have fun!

Here's the basic flaw of Celsius. While some forms of measurement are interrelated (1 g = 1 cc of water at 0 degrees C), the idea of basing a temperature scale on water is very earth-centric. Pure water freezes at 0 and boils at 100. That's fine if PRESSURE is always the same. That's not universally consistent.

I'm not sure what Kelvin is calibrated to, but 0K is the lack of any thermal energy, so the K temp for lots of things would be in huge numbers.

Granted, Fahrenheit is much worse...as is much of the English system as it's cobbled together for various measures developed over the centuries and Celsius is designed to be easy to convert on scales of 10, but still....

What Kelvin is calibrated to is Absolute Zero. Not the freezing point of water- but to the much more frigid theoretical point at which there is no heat at all.


Fahrenheit was invented by one guy one day- a Frenchman named Fahrenheit. It was calibrated to human comfort levels. Towards a 100-its friggn hot-toward zero its cold.

Unlike the imperial system of measures (pounds-yards-gallons) it is NOT cobbled together from a pastiche of ancient systems, and unlike (but like the metric system) it IS actually decimal. None of this '2cups makes a pint but four quarts makes a gallon jive).

So both F and C are pretty straightforward compared to inches and acres.
So both are actually very user friendly math wise.

Despite being partial to F even when I was child (before I heard of celsius) I wondered why they placed the freezing point of water at 32 degrees. It always seemed more logical to have the freezing/melting poiont of water be zero ( like why do they put New Years Day in the dead of winter? Why not start the year at the vernal Equinox?- That seemed more natural to me as a child).

Celsius is indeed calibrated to the freezing/melting point of water at sea level on earth.

Kelvin IS cosmic centered as opposed to the earth centered Celsius, which is why scientists use Kelvin. Kelvin uses the same intervals in temperature as Celsius ( the same yardstick with the same marks- just labeled with different numbers). But because its earth centered celsius is better suited than Kelvin to the nonscientists who needs to watch the weatherman each day (as is fahrenheit).

What Kelvin is calibrated to, however, is not the freezing point of water- but to Absolute Zero- the theoretical baseline where there is NO heat in the cosmos ( the actual limit to how colds things can get). Thats a termperature several hundred degrees below zero in both the F and the C scales. Its only a few degrees above the ambient temperature of outerspace, and is far below the temperatures ever experienced on earth. Thats why nonscientists never use Kelvin for the weather forecast. Its TOO non earth centered for practical everyday use by most folks.

So for popular use its a contest between Celsius and Fehrenheit with Kelvin not even in the running. However- the fact that celsius and kelvin are designed to be simpatico (easy conversion between the two) is a bit of selling point for celsius.

I'm good with Celsius, especially ordinary environmental Celsius temperature values, since the weather is a special interest of mine. I'd even say, as an American, I understand Celsius temperature values almost as well as I do Fahrenheit. I prefer Fahrenheit, though, since I feel it's better for measuring temperatures we encounter everyday since the scale 0-100 runs goes from rather cold to rather hot, with values below zero or above 100 signifying more exceptional temperatures. But a similar scale in Celsius would be something like -20 to 40. Celsius is obviously far superior for science, though.

I've lived in the United States all my life and personally always liked celsius more than fahrenheit. It just always made more sense to me for 0 degrees to be the freezing point of water and 100 to be the boiling point of water as opposed to the freezing point being 32 and the boiling point being 212. In fact, (much to the annoyance of those arround me) I think the metric system as a whole makes a lot more sense than imperial units of measurement.

I rarely use the units of measurement I prefer though because my grandfather doesn't like canadians and doesn't approve of me talking like one. In addition to that, only a small percentage of people I talk to know how far a kilometer is or how hot 35 degrees celcius is.

I've always thought when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter to most people, and those that it does generally already use the metric system. The only other job fields where it would be really helpful is construction and possibly logistics, but with the abundance of electronics and automation to do any calculations it doesn't cause enough of a problem to be worth the effort to change things.

Most don't really care.

There was a very brief attempt to switch to metric during the late 70's when Carter was in office. Then Regan killed that in a heartbeat.

The only americans that know much about the metric system are drug users. Most illicit drugs are traded in grams.

Personally, I'd have no trouble switching.

I'm a Canadian, and I've used Celsius all my life for measuring temperatures, but for some reason I've never used it for cooking. Seeing how cold it is outside? Definitely. Measuring the temperature of my computer's CPU? Absolutely. Cooking? I go by Fahrenheit because it's what's most commonly used in recipes and such, though I have no sense of what the actual temperatures are like in Celsius. I just know that -40C is the same as -40F.

I'm not sure why the metric system isn't used by the general American population. Like other people have said, only scientists and other Americans use Celsius for that matter.
I'm fine with Fahrenheit. Maybe it's because I grew up with it. I also need some correlation. If it's really really hot outside (like 90F/about 32C), I prefer a larger number. But again, Kelvin works fine for that too. LOL (Although nobody really uses Kelvin, except scientists)
Also the man who invented the Fahrenheit measurement was a European who also invented the mercury thermometer. :p
Y'know, to settle this debate between The United States and the Metric World, I will personally use Kelvin (Or maybe even Rankine )
A switch to Celsius for The United States might be much better for its citizens, but it would take time. (Maybe not just switching to it, but getting used to it too).

I think it's all about money. It would require a significant investment to change everything over to metric.