# "Why do we have so many temperature scales?" response **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 27, 2004, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754 "2004-12-27T08:08:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/21 "2004-12-29T16:15:20Z")
I’m going to put in a good word for the Farenheit scale, seeing as no one else will do it. The Farenheit scale more or less encloses the temperature range we in the temperate zones experience in the 0 to 100 interval. Most of the temperate zone is in or near this interval most of the time. Yes, summer in Death Valley can be 130 degrees, and 30 below is not completely unfamiliar territory in the northern tier states, but for most people, 0 to 100 is pretty much their daily existance. There is no real calculation advantage to the Celcius scale – we don’t calculate in kilodegrees or millidegrees – so, for everyday purposes, the Farenheit scale does just fine. For specific applications, an absolute scale is handy, but there is no particular advantage to any specific unit, other than standardization. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/22 "2004-12-29T16:17:50Z")
> [@aerodave](#): > > Just one more question, out of curiosity: How do members who are not on the SDSAB, such as **hibernicus** , get questions to answer? > > I imagine that there are several areas of expertise not fully accounted for in the SDSAB pantheon. Is it common for these questions to be referred to members with known credentials in the appropriate subject area? **Dex** is the leader of the SDSAB, and if you are interested in doing a report, then the thing to do is to contact him via e-mail, and tell him what your expertise is in, etc., and he will tell you what sort of questions are available. If you like doing it, and are good at it, and eventually get selected for the SDSAB (ask **Dex** about the specifics) then you can get access to a separate site which contains all of the outstanding questions sent in by readers, as well as works in progress. Then you can find questions yourself, and “claim” them to do a report. I have on occasion found articles which I thought were a good fit for someone, and I’ve asked if they were interested in doing them. I found one for **Fierra** a while back on Greek and Egyptian pantheons, and **hibernicus** had written a nice report on temperature on my own message board, so I thought his writing and knowledge would be something more people than my small group would enjoy. I’ve also sent a few other questions to people on my Board who have special expertise or knowledge (or at least a desire to some research and write an article). I imagine others on the SDSAB do the same sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/23 "2004-12-29T18:45:55Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I’m going to put in a good word for the Farenheit scale, seeing as no one else will do it. > > The Farenheit scale more or less encloses the temperature range we in the temperate zones experience in the 0 to 100 interval. Most of the temperate zone is in or near this interval most of the time. Yes, summer in Death Valley can be 130 degrees, and 30 below is not completely unfamiliar territory in the northern tier states, but for most people, 0 to 100 is pretty much their daily existance. > > There is no real calculation advantage to the Celcius scale – we don’t calculate in kilodegrees or millidegrees – so, for everyday purposes, the Farenheit scale does just fine. For specific applications, an absolute scale is handy, but there is no particular advantage to any specific unit, other than standardization. Another thing to consider: When rounding a temperature reading to the nearest integer, as is done for almost all environmental reporting, the Fahrenheit scale is a “finer” scale (i.e. has more resolution) when compared to the Celsius scale when measuring _changes_ in temperature. In fact, it has almost _twice_ the resolution. I like this aspect of the Fahrenheit scale. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/24 "2004-12-29T22:34:33Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > In the article you report that the name was officially changed to “Celsius” in 1948. Perhaps this is just an “Americanism”, but from primary school (ca. 1965) until the late '80’s, I always heard the terms centigrade and Celsius used interchangeably. A number of my science teachers insisted on centigrade as the preferred term, because it was descriptive, denoting a 100 point scale. However, sometime during Engineering school, Celsius became the proper term because it reflected the person involved with it’s discovery, e.g., Newton, Tesla, Guass, Joule, etc. > What is the straight dope on the name? Did it swap back and forth, like Cape Canaveral/Kennedy/Canaveral, or was I just educated in a cultural backwater, i.e., Texas? The name changed to “Celsius” in 1948. Period. But many of your teachers were in school before 1948. I confess that I find 1965-1980 rather late. My schools in Maine and New Jersey had managed to make the change around 1960. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/25 "2004-12-31T00:48:39Z")
> [@John W. Kennedy](#): > > The name changed to “Celsius” in 1948. Period. But many of your teachers were in school before 1948. > > I confess that I find 1965-1980 rather late. My schools in Maine and New Jersey had managed to make the change around 1960. As I mentioned in the Report, and was pointed out by **John W. Kennedy** , the correct name is “Celsius” by international agreement since 1948. But it can take an awfully long time for such a change to make its way into the popular consciousness. The terms “Centigrade” and “Celsius” are _still_ more-or-less interchangeable in popular use here in Ireland. The weather service has used “Celsius” for many years, but I found one example of the term “Centigrade” still in use on their [official website](http://www.met.ie/recentweather/weatherstationreports.asp). A similar search on the UK’s weather service website turns up two recent reports on climate change where “Centigrade” is used. So even in scientific circles, it is not completely extinct. ---
**Author:** ![JayLu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a698b9/32.png) [@JayLu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayLu)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/26 "2005-01-15T21:46:04Z")
I was just reading the “why is Fahrenheit 32 to 212” question… (I had Google’ed the items – wife and I were “discussing” it – and found the Straight Dope answer) The link was: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a891215.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a891215.html) ``` Why? Well, it was -17 not far from here today. Long ago as a Starship Trooper, (USAF, 60's & 70's) I spent a cool year (yes) in Thule, Greenland. The 4 continuous months of daylight were nice, the 2 transition months in Spring and Fall were interesting, but the 4 months of dark were a bit depressing. We had (at that time) about 500 USAF people, about 500 Danes -- who were there for the $ (TAX FREE .. a big deal to them) as "service workers". They did the Chow Halls, most of the "Taxis" and motor pool, and some maint. work. (Also 4-500 American civilians, but they were out on the ice cap at the BMEWS radar site, mostly. We would argue temperature scales -- the Danes were Celsius types. The winter average was in the -30's but would often hit -40. THAT is the common point on the F and C scales. (as the question in http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a891215.html asks at the end.) Easy to remember when you've seen it plenty. The lowest I ever saw was -65 F, but the record was in the -70's. Later, I was in Germany for 2-3 years and we discussed it there too. I always said that Fahrenheit WAS German and they should have stayed with that. I met an older German who insisted that (he was taught in school that) Fahrenheit had chosen 0 and 100 as the "weather extremes" for his country ... with 0 the coldest possible and 100 the hottest possible, and that "man couldn't survive" outside of that range. I think the "Cecil replies" answer is probably more correct, but basically, who knows? JL ``` ---
**Author:** ![kefn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f05b48/32.png) [@kefn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kefn)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/27 "2005-03-13T18:30:15Z")
Why different temp scales? 1. different needs - many scientific formulas require Kelvin(s) to balence the units. 2. Canadians love to see Americans gasp if they catch our weather reports (although even in Soutern Ontario it be a higher negative in farenhiet than celsius, this switch happens at -40 C or F) 3. (abstract guess) noteraity, it’s cool to have a scale of any kind named after oneself giving scientists a reason to abritrarly dismiss anothers scale in favour of thier own. See phillip’s verus robertson screw drivers for a lesson in redundancy ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754/28 "2005-03-13T21:54:37Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. different needs - many scientific formulas require Kelvin(s) to balence the units. Yes and no. For many scientific purposes, it’s important to use an absolute scale, that is to say, one where the zero of the scale is absolute zero. But any absolute scale at all could be used. You’d have to express the physical constants in different units, but that’s not inherently any more difficult. The only reason we use Kelvin rather than Rankin is that it makes things easier to have one standard, and most folks in the world use Celsius rather than Farenheit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-temperature-scales-response/281754.md?page=1)