In my new scale, °X, 0 is Earths’ record lowest surface temperature, 50 is the global average, and 100 is the record highest, with a linear scale between each point and adjustment every year as needed.
I am very surprised that Rankine gets such a high cursedness score. Isn’t it just the same as Kelvin but based on Fahrenheit instead of Celsius?
Because it implies you are using US Costumary/Imperial units for science or “fancy” engineering.
Yeah, well that’s a cultural thing really. Celcius and fahrenheit scales are both quite arbitrary. The kelvin scale uses absolute zero, which totally makes sense, but the other fixed point is pretty arbitrary when you think of it. The fahrenheit scale makes sense for the human experience of weather, while the celcius scale makes sense for generally life on Earth where water plays an important role. Neither of them are particularly universal, and they both suck in their unique ways.
see also: natural units
(Edit)
Life Pro Tip: If you take the piss out of two units at the same time, you can make everyone equally angry.
Technically they arr arbitrary yes, but sometimes some arbitrary makes more sense than others. Why is fahrenheit 0 at -32°C? Accordinfmg to wikipedia he chose 0°F as the melting point of water and ammonium chloride (what percentage of solution?) and the highest was initially “the average of the hottest temperature of a healthy man”. Do you see why this feels more arbitrady then " the melting and boiling point of water at 101.300 Pa"? Not only these points are constant and measurable, but water is such ubiqutous in human life that it feels at least less arbitrary as a reference point.
Historically, it was ok. Now it just doesn’t make much sense, sincd we tried (and mostly succeded) to standardize measurements units for centuries (and make them all base 10)
The fahrenheit scale makes sense for the human experience of weather
Wat. Yanks keep saying this but… wat
Yes, but if you have to convert from Fahrenheit to another scale anyways, why in the hell would you not just go straight to Kelvin?!
Converting between Kelvin and Celsius is simple addition; converting between Rankine and Fahrenheit is simple addition. Converting between the two groups requires multiplication, and pre calculator, that’s notably harder.
Also, all your kJ/kg/°C or BTU/lb/°F tables and factors are identical when you swap to referencing absolute zero. If you change to the other unit system, all that goes out the window.