Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 02:57:02 GMT, "George E. Cawthon"
wrote:

Default User wrote:
Dave Smith wrote:


We have been officially metric for almost 30 years now, but most
people over 30 still seem to thing in Fahrenheit. I don't
understand it because Celsius makes so much more sense. Water
freezes at 0 and boils at 100. That 0 C makes a big difference in
weather conditions. When it drops below freezing it is cold, so
having a scale that zeroes out at the freezing point makes a lot
of sense. You are quite right about being able to detect a one
degree difference in temperature. One degree C is noticeable
while one degree F is not.
I disagree, even though I have a science background (Physics). Metric
is great for doing that sort of thing, but for weather, not so much.

Fahrenheit is good because 100F is really nice and hot, and 0F is
really nice and cold. Bounds the temps that humans deal with rather
nicely. 100C is outside the range of experience (one hopes) and 0C is
coldish. Who cares what temperature water boils at?

The degrees F have nice granularity, so you don't have to deal with
fractional ones when describing the weather.
Granularity? You mean spacing? Doesn't matter my
electronic F deg thermometers measure in tenths
anyway.


I have such a thermometer too. Usually the accuracy of the
thermometer is so low that the extra digit provides no useful
information. I round those numbers almost automatically. One night the
low was 32F (the actual display was 31.8F).



Brian

Mine are very accurate, and yes when I record the
temperature I round it. The real issue is that
most people use thermometers to determine
temperatures that are constantly changing. Check
a digital one with an outside probe attached.
The inside temperature is in a housing that is
heavy enough to act as a heat reservoir so the
temperature changes slowly, while the outside one
has hardly any heat sink.

I have a dual sensor thermometer sitting on a file
case in my office. Under carefully controlled
conditions both the internal and the outside
sensors read the same. In actual practice the
outside and inside sensors seldom read the same
even though the sensors are only 5 inches apart.
I can walk past the sensors (about 2 feet away)
and stir the air enough that the outside sensor
changes 0.4-0.5 degrees.

Outside, temperatures often fluctuate so much that
anything less that a degree makes no sense. I
find it hilarious to listen to the weatherman say
excitedly say that the first freezing night of the
fall was 27 degrees. What he never says is the
period. That low of 27 degrees may have existed
less than a minute and most likely less than 5
minutes and the time below 32 degrees may have
been less than 10 minutes.