# Does the limited range in Celsius temps seem bizarre to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 2, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773 "2012-12-02T18:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/41 "2012-12-02T22:46:53Z")
Hey, I consider this all rather tongue-in-cheek. Of course, it helps that I’m right. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/42 "2012-12-02T22:55:09Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > And other than being intellectually satisfying in an obsessive sort of way, this is irrelevant. Yes, the “endpoints” of the Celsius scale have meaning. The endpoints of the Fahrenheit scale have utility, in that they cover the range of normal atmospheric temperature experience. > > Remembering that water freezes at 32F won’t hurt you. And with that, the only remotely debatable advantage of the celsius system for everyday use is eliminated. I’m British and was born in the seventies. I remember in the eighties when weather reports were given in BOTH centigrade (as it was then, and noted by someone unthread) and Fahrenheit. My parents prefer Fahrenheit, I prefer Celsius. With that wealth of experience of being subjected to both temperature scales in my life, I feel qualified to say that this argument is fucking ridiculous. And to think there’s a thread elsewhere on here about the SDMB having an above average intelligence level. I offer this thread as a counter example. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/43 "2012-12-02T22:56:17Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Yeah, I’m going to bookmark this thread and use it in the future when folks argue that people at SDMB are more intelligent than average. Damn my girlfriend distracting me so I didn’t finish making this point before you made it. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/44 "2012-12-02T22:57:44Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Hey, I consider this all rather tongue-in-cheek. Of course, it helps that I’m right. Ah, the ‘I was only joking’ defence. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/45 "2012-12-02T23:04:13Z")
For me, the strangest part is how much Canadians blend them. Especially when cooking: every recipe and oven I’ve ever worked with deals with Fahrenheit. I know “350” is normal cooking temperature, 450 is high, etc., but I sure don’t know those numbers in Celsius. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/46 "2012-12-02T23:46:12Z")
> [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](#): > > For me, the strangest part is how much Canadians blend them. Especially when cooking: every recipe and oven I’ve ever worked with deals with Fahrenheit. I know “350” is normal cooking temperature, 450 is high, etc., but I sure don’t know those numbers in Celsius. I suspect that has a lot to do Canadians’ propensity to own cooking appliances that are manufactured in the States. (Although my sister once owned an old oven with the knob labelled with the numbers from 1 to 10. Not sure if those were gas marks or what.) ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/47 "2012-12-02T23:50:06Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Does the limited range in Celsius temps seem bizarre to you? Having lived in both the United Sates and France, I can say that getting used to metric temperatures took the longest out of all units of measurement. (For what it’s worth, getting used to the 24-hour clock was the easiest.) Six months, or maybe a year of dealing with Celsius was enough to get used to the shrunken “range” of temperatures. I still think, though, that any temperature scale that has its 0 point at anywhere other than absolute zero is kind of silly. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/48 "2012-12-02T23:54:03Z")
> [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](#): > > For me, the strangest part is how much Canadians blend them. Especially when cooking: every recipe and oven I’ve ever worked with deals with Fahrenheit. I know “350” is normal cooking temperature, 450 is high, etc., but I sure don’t know those numbers in Celsius. [Pedantry]350F is about 175C, and 450F would be a bit more than 50 more than that, so call it 225C, maybe 230C. And now that you know, you can promptly forget.[/Pedantry] ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/49 "2012-12-03T00:46:39Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > I still think, though, that any temperature scale that has its 0 point at anywhere other than absolute zero is kind of silly. LOL. I agree in spirit, but seriously, if everyone only uses the 270-300 part of the scale, that WOULD be weirdly restricted. The wasted effort of saying “two hundred and” before every temperature really does matter, and makes it harder to listen, so I strongly support a non-Kelvin system. Admittedly, it would be better if the system were more obviously not zero at zero, so people didn’t say stupid things like “twice as hot” referring to 10C and 20C or 30F and 60F. But between C and F, either seems to have a range perfectly good for every day measurements, it’s almost entirely just which you’re used to. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/50 "2012-12-03T01:32:51Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > But really, your OP is like someone saying “Wow, I can’t believe this apple pie only has 6 slices! It should have 8! How do people get by with only 6 slices of pie?” Maybe they aren’t hungry enough to eat eight slices? I thought that was obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/51 "2012-12-03T06:31:47Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > I think it makes a lot more sense to assign base values to the phase changes of water, since that doesn’t vary with each individual and can be observed in nature. But water doesn’t boil at 100C in Colorado, or western Alberta, or the Andes. Where’s your ‘base values’ when the air pressure is significantly less than ‘sea level’, hmmmm? Also, you people are all weird. 60F, or 15C is comfortable. You all are talking about household temps that are way too fucking hot, and calling them ‘a bit chilly’, or worse. > [@amanset](#): > > And to think there’s a thread elsewhere on here about the SDMB having an above average intelligence level. I offer this thread as a counter example. That’s a myth that some people here need to maintain, because it makes them feel better about their otherwise useless selves. When you actually _read_ this site, it becomes obvious that it isn’t true. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/52 "2012-12-03T07:06:12Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > Having lived in both the United Sates and France, I can say that getting used to metric temperatures took the longest out of all units of measurement. (For what it’s worth, getting used to the 24-hour clock was the easiest.) > > Six months, or maybe a year of dealing with Celsius was enough to get used to the shrunken “range” of temperatures. I still think, though, that any temperature scale that has its 0 point at anywhere other than absolute zero is kind of silly. Neither the Celsius scale, nor the 24 hour clock are metric. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/53 "2012-12-03T07:10:03Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > I think I’ve got this nailed. Here in my secret underground lab, I’ve discovered a way to separate numbers into smaller components. I’m thinking of calling it the “decimal point.” Every week, a section of the Earth’s Old-Growth decimals, equivalent in area to Wales, is cut down and harvested for use in expressing temperatures precisely. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/54 "2012-12-03T07:46:28Z")
Fahrenheit is quicker and easier for me because it’s what I’m used to, but Celsius doesn’t seem particularly bizarre. If somebody tells me the temperature in C, I have a decent idea of whether it’s hot or cold, and if I want a closer figure, a ballpark mental math conversion isn’t too hard. Kilometers are what get me for some reason. If you tell me something is 4 miles away, I can pretty well visualize how far that is and how long it will take to get there given a mode of transport and road conditions. 4 km? No clue. 100 km/h is about highway speed and that’s all I know. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/55 "2012-12-03T07:53:47Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Yeah, I’m going to bookmark this thread and use it in the future when folks argue that people at SDMB are more intelligent than average. I wouldn’t if I were you. IQ is measured in such a way that 100 is normal. That’s dangerously close to going metric. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/56 "2012-12-03T08:01:07Z")
Well at the cost of looking like an idiot I’ll join the chorus, after living under the tyranny of both regimes F just makes more sense than C. Like fevers, C is annoying with its small graduation, it doesn’t have the immediacy of 98 versus 103. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/57 "2012-12-03T08:54:40Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#): > > Canada gets a lot colder than -5. I pretty much lived my life in a 70 degree range… -40 to +30. So, yeah whatcha calling limited? Of course I know the baselines in farenheit, like 32 and 70 and stuff. I know 98.6 is a fever, but I am better with fevers in metric, since I know 37 is normal, and it gets worse. By 38 you are drawing blood cultures and it is an emergency. Of course I started school in 1974. Which meant I was educated in Imperial units in kindergarten and Grade 1, then metric for the rest of it. I had teachers learning franticly one chapter ahead in the text before we hit that unit. I know height in feet and inches, but distance in kilometres (or more likely since I am from the middle of freaking nowhere northern Ontario…hi Muffin) in hours driving time. I am more accustomed to weight in lbs, but as a nurse I know milligrams and millilitres for medications. I know a gallon is kinda sorta 4 litres–ish, and a quart is roughly 2 litres but I honestly don’t convert many things, I know some things in one unit and some in another. People of my generation had to learn both, somehow to be able to communicate with anyone older than us. I have no clue what a hectare is, really, but then I’m kind of fuzzy on an acre too. I do know that anything that is $0.99/ lb is $2.18/kg. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/58 "2012-12-03T09:15:13Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > [Pedantry]350F is about 175C, and 450F would be a bit more than 50 more than that, so call it 225C, maybe 230C. And now that you know, you can promptly forget.[/Pedantry] Yup. For cooking purposes, F divided by two is C, C times two is F. It took me about two sessions of cooking from US recipes to notice that in the typical oven temperature range, F/2 is sufficiently close to (F-32)\*5/9 to make the error negligible. It’s of course natural that more or less the only country insisting on using Imperial measurements for weight, length etc. also refuses to convert to Celcius like the rest of the world has done. The most hilarious example is in bolts and nuts. You call Metric “Metric” and Unified “Standard”. While for the rest of the world, metric is _the_ standard 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/59 "2012-12-03T09:52:29Z")
On a humid subtropical island, anything below 20 degrees C is chilly and anything below 15 is uncomfortably cold. So it’s fine for my particular situation, going back and forth between Taiwan and the US, because 15 C in the former is _not_ the same as 60 F in the latter. Aside from that, though, I admit I do prefer the smaller gradations of Fahrenheit, and I think it’s ridiculous for anyone to argue Centigrade is “better” – both systems are equally arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773/60 "2012-12-03T09:58:56Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > (and I think that the idea that temperatures in human-inhabited areas bottoms out at -5C is sorely mistaken). Yup, I’ve walked home from the pub at about -34C, and sat outside drinking beer at over 40C. (in different countries admittedly, but both where people live year-round!) > [@Mangetout](#): > > Yes - digital temperature controls often do adjust in .5 Celsius increments. My digital kitchen thermometer measures in tenths. Yeah, my digital thermometers all measure in tenths. (if you’re already adding an extra digit why limit it to displaying just .0 or .5? That’s weird.) > [@grude](#): > > Well at the cost of looking like an idiot I’ll join the chorus, after living under the tyranny of both regimes F just makes more sense than C. Like fevers, C is annoying with its small graduation, it doesn’t have the immediacy of 98 versus 103. Chalk me up for Camp C 😛 (not that I can now remember if its centigrade or celcius after reading both names repeatedly throughout this thread!!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-limited-range-in-celsius-temps-seem-bizarre-to-you/642773.md?page=4)