On 17/02/2021 17:01, S wrote:
On 17/02/2021 16:50, nightjar wrote:
On 17/02/2021 13:09, Steve Walker wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:26, NY wrote:
"nightjar" wrote in message
...

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as
a kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to
wrap up warm or not. It was only when I started science at school
that exact temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

Fahrenheit has to be the most hare-brained temperature scale ever
devised - apart from the one which used an inverse scale so a higher
temperature was a lower number. It seems very obvious that you
devise a temperature scale that is based on (and is easily compared
with) the properties of the most abundant liquid on Earth: water.

Neither are particularly sensible, as that the freezing and
particularly boiling points of water can vary considerably with
variations in pressure. Yes, I know that they are defined at Standard
Pressure, but that means that you also need an accurate means of
establishing the pressure.

Which had existed for a century when Celcius proposed his scale. He
set 100 as the freezing point of water and zero as the boiling point
at the mean atmospheric pressure at sea level. The scale we know as
Celcius today is actually the reverse of his.


and The Kelvin scale is set as 0K to be the triple point of water where
it exists in 3 sates of matter (solid, liquid & gas) all at the same
time, which is about 0.4 °C IIRC.

0K is absolute zero, where all movement (at the atomic level) ceases -
approximately -273.15°C. so the triple point of water (about 0.01°C) is
approximately 273.16K.

On 18/02/2021 10:57, charles wrote:
In article , NY wrote:
"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve). The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a
layman to understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or
whatever was used for 100.

i was taught that it was blood heat.


It was blood heat. Blood heat and the freezing point of a saturated
Sodium Chloride solution were, in Fahrenheit's time, pretty good
candidates for fixed points.

Later on Fahrenheit's scale was crunched to make 9 Fahrenheit degrees
equal to 5 Celsius degrees. Hence 98.whatever °F

Poor Fahrenheit - first plagiarised, and then run over by a JCB...

PA

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve). The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a layman
to understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or whatever was
used for 100.

Body temperature, so even easier to understand.

OK, so freezing/boiling of water are fairly inexact, and will vary
according to pressure, and impurities in water.

But anything else isnt likely to be known by many of the public.

I've always wondered: why is it that F and C are denoted as "degrees F/C"
whereas Kelvin (like all other physical units) is just "Kelvin" (not
"degrees Kelvin")?

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
On 18 Feb 2021 at 10:57:34 GMT, charles wrote:

In article , NY wrote:
"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve). The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a
layman to understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or
whatever was used for 100.

i was taught that it was blood heat.

IOW, not arbitrary. Unlike the metre, which *is* arbitrary.

Nope, it was originally a ten millionth of the distance between
the equator and the north pole by the great circle route and
is now how far light travels in a second in a vacuum.

On Fri, 19 Feb 2021 03:32:13 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


Nope

LOL

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing the auto-contradicting senile cretin:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
On 18 Feb 2021 at 11:35:20 GMT, The Natural Philosopher

wrote:

On 18/02/2021 11:12, Tim Streater wrote:
On 18 Feb 2021 at 10:57:34 GMT, charles
wrote:

In article , NY
wrote:
"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were
relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve). The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a
layman to understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or
whatever was used for 100.

i was taught that it was blood heat.
IOW, not arbitrary. Unlike the metre, which *is* arbitrary.

Absolutely not. One 40 millionth of the earths circumference measured by
a Frenchmens in Paris, or summat

As I said, arbitrary.

Just as true of the ones you claim arent arbitrary.

On Fri, 19 Feb 2021 09:14:12 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
"Who or What is Rod Speed?

Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod Speed
is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered he can
enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the big, hard
man" on the InterNet."
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

"Peter Able" wrote in message
...
On 18/02/2021 10:57, charles wrote:
In article , NY wrote:
"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve). The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a
layman to understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or
whatever was used for 100.

i was taught that it was blood heat.


It was blood heat. Blood heat and the freezing point of a saturated Sodium
Chloride solution

Nope, aluminium chloride.

were, in Fahrenheit's time, pretty good candidates for fixed points.

Later on Fahrenheit's scale was crunched to make 9 Fahrenheit degrees
equal to 5 Celsius degrees. Hence 98.whatever °F

Poor Fahrenheit - first plagiarised, and then run over by a JCB...

On Fri, 19 Feb 2021 11:00:24 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

It was blood heat. Blood heat and the freezing point of a saturated Sodium
Chloride solution

Nope

LOL Pathological senile idiot!

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing the auto-contradicting senile cretin:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

On 17/02/2021 00:35, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
williamwright wrote:
On 16/02/2021 15:52, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
jon wrote:
....but as Enoch Powell predicted the Common Market was a smoke screen
for a federal europe with a common currency.

And he was wrong about that too, as with so much else?

Thanks for reminding us so many anti EU types are arch racists.


I can never follow your logic. You seem to jump from one concept to
another as if there's causation when there isn't. It makes my head spin.

You mean a bit like posting a totally off topic to a group about DIY, Bill?

There you go again! Remarkable.

Bill

On 17/02/2021 12:37, charles wrote:

But it means a pint weighs a pound - which is vaguely logical


But a pint costs £3.

Bill

On 17/02/2021 14:22, NY wrote:

And, even more important, a cubic centimetre weighs a gramme or a cubic
decimetre (a litre) weighs a kilogramme or a cubic metre weighs a tonne.

Does that apply to all substances then?

Bill

On 17/02/2021 20:15, S wrote:


For all I know you could be talking kilowatt, kilometre, kiloOhms,
Kilofarads or KiloHenries.....


Or that mountain in Africa, Killer Manjaro. Or wasn't that a Mexican bandit?

Bill

In article ,
williamwright wrote:
On 17/02/2021 12:37, charles wrote:

But it means a pint weighs a pound - which is vaguely logical


But a pint costs £3.

Bill

maybe in Yorkshire, but down here it will probably be a fiver when they
open again.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 19/02/2021 16:25, williamwright wrote:
On 17/02/2021 14:22, NY wrote:

And, even more important, a cubic centimetre weighs a gramme or a
cubic decimetre (a litre) weighs a kilogramme or a cubic metre weighs
a tonne.

Does that apply to all substances then?

Bill

only to substances with a density of 1 g/cm3 or 1000 kg/m3 :-)

On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F. Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to, and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K




--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 18/02/2021 10:16, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 18 Feb 2021 10:07:41 +0000, NY wrote:

"Peter Able" wrote in message
...

Fahrenheit has had a bad, bad, press over the centuries

It was, after all, the ORIGINAL centigrade temperature scale.

Celsius was a relatively late-coming plagiarist !

It may have been centigrade, but those hundred degrees were relative to
random temperatures (the coldest and hottest that Fahrenheit could
achieve).
The freezing and boiling point of water are easier for a layman to
understand than the freezing point of saturated brine or whatever was
used for 100. OK, so freezing/boiling of water are fairly inexact, and
will vary according to pressure, and impurities in water.


I've always wondered: why is it that F and C are denoted as "degrees
F/C" whereas Kelvin (like all other physical units) is just "Kelvin"
(not "degrees Kelvin")?

Sometimes the colloquial and the scientific don't always align.

No amount of logic to the metric system is going to make it easier to say
"568ml please" rather than "a pint please".

And as noted in this thread, most people just say "2x4" in the same way
they'd say "the blue one".

But that is the American practice, here it would be the larger dimension
first, so 4x2

I really struggled to understand that some people failed to grasp that
there can - and often is - a difference between what you measure in, and
what you call things. To the extent I suspect a lot of them are putting
more effort into being dim than clever.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F. Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to, and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for you
youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with degrees K to
keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A level
deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of quantity or to
dimensions.

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On 22/02/2021 16:55, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to
wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F. Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to, and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for you
youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with degrees K to
keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A level
deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of quantity or to
dimensions.

Did you skip the MKS system?

On 22/02/2021 17:15, Fredxx wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:55, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to
wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for
temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F. Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to, and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for
you youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with degrees
K to keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A
level deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of quantity
or to dimensions.

Did you skip the MKS system?



I can't remember if we were on MKS or SI for A levels. Can't recall a
single electromagnetism issue from the time. And it may have been a
******* mix of the 2 as I do recall the head of physics complaining at
one point about a temporary change at short notice. It was Oxford and
Cambridge Board if anyone can help.


--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On 22/02/2021 17:54, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 17:15, Fredxx wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:55, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me
as a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to
wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for
temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F.
Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to,
and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for
you youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with
degrees K to keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A
level deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of
quantity or to dimensions.

Did you skip the MKS system?



I can't remember if we were on MKS or SI for A levels.Â* Can't recall a
single electromagnetism issue from the time.Â* And it may have been a
******* mix of the 2 as I do recall the head of physics complaining at
one point about a temporary change at short notice.Â* It was Oxford and
Cambridge Board if anyone can help.

This article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKS_system_of_units
suggests the MKS system was adopted in 1889 and succeeded the CGS
system. You're not really that old?

Exams were very definitely SI units when I took my O-levels. I can't
find a date when exams boards changed from MKS to SI units. On the most
part they are similar.

I have always disliked the idea that 1,000 of a quantity becomes a
standard rather than a unit quantity. Perhaps that's just OCD.

On 17/02/2021 09:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/02/2021 17:18, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 16:58:24 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 16/02/2021 14:52, Roger Hayter wrote:
Of course, unlike later bits of shopping metrication which were
bitterly contested, it could have been of no interest whatever to the
Common Market what we divided our Pounds into.Â* But I remember it being
sold as a pro-European move, as I remember Powell, ever the
opportunist, opposing it on the same grounds

I understood it to be far more about computerization of the banking and
financial system

That's an odd one. Surely computers are uniquely equipped to deal with
non-decimal systems ?

of course but its massively more complicated to for example work out
what 3.5% per annum of £1237 17'3½d is compounded as a monthly interest,
in £sd terms.

The answer was to represent all values in either binary coded decimal or
really in floating point, as far as banks went. Display in pounds and
whole pence was simply presentation.

But where it really made a difference was shop sized cash registers and
small computers like pocket calculators

snip

Banks never use floating point.

They get really upset if you take a million pounds, take off a
percentage, and the resulting numbers don't add up to a million by a penny.

Andy

"Fredxx" wrote in message
...
On 22/02/2021 17:54, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 17:15, Fredxx wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:55, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar wrote:

I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to me as
a
kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I needed to
wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that
exact
temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel for
temps
in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for temps in F.
Now
I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used to,
and
you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for you
youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with degrees K to
keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A
level deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of quantity
or to dimensions.

Did you skip the MKS system?



I can't remember if we were on MKS or SI for A levels. Can't recall a
single electromagnetism issue from the time. And it may have been a
******* mix of the 2 as I do recall the head of physics complaining at
one point about a temporary change at short notice. It was Oxford and
Cambridge Board if anyone can help.

This article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKS_system_of_units
suggests the MKS system was adopted in 1889 and succeeded the CGS system.

Not on that date in schools it didnt.

You're not really that old?

Exams were very definitely SI units when I took my O-levels. I can't find
a date when exams boards changed from MKS to SI units. On the most part
they are similar.

I have always disliked the idea that 1,000 of a quantity becomes a
standard rather than a unit quantity. Perhaps that's just OCD.

Its actually the ear to ear dog ****.

On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 16:17:46 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread


--
Bod addressing senile Rot:
"Rod, you have a sick twisted mind. I suggest you stop your mindless
and totally irresponsible talk. Your mouth could get you into a lot of
trouble."
Message-ID:

On Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:15:39 +0000
Fredxx wrote:

On 22/02/2021 16:55, Robin wrote:
On 22/02/2021 16:42, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/02/2021 11:31, jon wrote:
On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:19:15 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

On 17 Feb 2021 at 10:11:52 GMT, nightjar
wrote:
I never had a feel for Fahrenheit. It didn't really matter to
me as a kid what the outside temperature was beyond whether I
needed to wrap up
warm or not. It was only when I started science at school that
exact temperatures mattered and we used the cgs system for
that.

It depends where you are. When I moved to Geneva I got a feel
for temps in C. Then I moved to the US and (re)gained a feel for
temps in F. Now I'm back here and it's a feel in C again.

Someone says a number, for a temp, using the units you're used
to, and you know how warm/cold that is, without having to think
about it.

Degrees K are the most sensible, keeps people alert.

No "Degrees" of K, just K


yerrbut that was a change introduced in the late 60s; all right for
you youngsters but you can't expect wrinklies who grew up with
degrees K to keep up

On a more serious note I have since switching from CGS to SI for A
level deprecated the lack of clues in SI units to the type of
quantity or to dimensions.

Did you skip the MKS system?



My thermodynamics lecture advocated the Furlong/Ferkin/Fortnight
System. Some interesting derived units, such as fuel consumption.

--
Davey.