CELSIUS V FAHRENHEIT [2024] - Judgement
The Fake Internet Court of Australia
H3323/1
We have learned of a dispute which has arisen and which rattled though the internuts until it finally made its way to this court until it found this fake internet court's attention:
https://twitter.com/ItsAndyRyan/status/1770502479878193226
Who's to say which system is better?
- Andy Ryan, via X, 21st Mar 2024
Well Mister Ryan, if you want matters of hypothetical ethics solved then you go to Geoffrey Robertson QC; if you want matters of astrophysics and rocket surgery solved then you go to Neil de Grasse Tyson; if you want to know what knick-knacks to put into a room or what kind of rug needs to go underneath that hideous coffee table that you can't bear to part with then you go to Tonia Todman; but if you want definitive answers to questions of no consequence then you come to The Fake Internet Court of Australia. Who is to say which system is better? I am.
This court is not only equipped to answer this dispute but it asserts jurisdiction in all spaces and all times. If that seems like an act of ultimate hubris to you, then your feeling is correct. It is. We have hubris by the bucket load here. The Fake Internet Court of Australia will judge upon about which is better: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Probably the reason as to why this argument is uniquely posed, is that the United States of America will go to any and all lengths to use any system of measurement other than the Metric System. Miles, pounds, gallons, furlongs, barleycorns, school buses, smoots, elephants; literally any nutjob, whackjob, madjob or oddjob system, with no ground in logic or sense will do. This is despite the fact and in spite of the fact that the Metric System which is very French, was adopted by the same country which helped the United States gain their independence. This is also despite the fact and in spite of the fact that the United States was the first country to adopt decimal currency and knows very well how to operate in a system where 100 cents make 1 dollar. What the hell is a kilometer? It is an actual freedom unit; 100 per cent of the time.
These are the facts as this court sees them:
The Celsius system of temperature measurement is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius. It sounds strange that an astronomer would want to do temperature calculations but when you bear in mind that back in the 1740s, scientists were far more polymathical and ecumenical to different areas of scientific reading, this is not unexpected. In Celsius' 1742 paper "Observationer Om Twänne Beständiga Grader På En Thermometer" (Observations about two stable degrees on a thermometer), Celsius performed a series of experiments showing that the melting point of ice is essentially unaffected by pressure. He then assigned an index of 100 to the melting point of ice and an index of 0 to the boiling point of water. This proved to be really useful but the rest of the scientific community assigned the an index 0 the melting point of ice and the index of 100 to the boiling point of water because it makes more sense that the numbers should go up the hotter that a thing is.
Likewise the Fahrenheit system of temperature measurement is named after the Polish-German Gabriel Fahrenheit, who, was an instrument maker; specifically trying to make temperature measuring instruments. His thermometer made us of the fact that elemental mercury while being a liquid metal at normal room temperatures, is still subject to the same kinds of expansion and contraction as other metals when heat is applied. His scale was derived from the fact that his personally developed frigiforic mineral salt ice mixture when frozen, had a very stable melting point where he could calibrate his zero mark. The 90 mark was taken from the temperature when his thermometer was placed underneath someone's arm of in the mouth; though he worked out pretty quickly that 96 as a highly composite number was very useful. His scale which was then adopted in various places, was tinkered with and tinkered with and tinkered with.
It has to be said here that the name "Anders Celsius" probably sounds completely normal for a Swede and the name "Gabriel Fahrenheit" does indeed sound ver very German. However it can not be denied that in the English tongue, the name "Gabriel Fahrenheit" is a positively cracking name for a baby. Moreover if you hear the name "Gabriel Fahrenheit" coming out of the mouth from someone oop North, when ten year old Gabriel is out playing football in the street at 6pm such as "Gabriel Fahrenheit! Your tea is ready!", then that's well great and pure belter.
The real nub, crux, and central plank of this case is that it matters not an iota what system anyone uses, as long as everyone agrees to it. However, the idea of preparing a specific frigiforic mixture to obtain your zero point as opposed to using ordinary water under normal laboratory conditions, is very very silly. Counter to that, practically everyone in the world who wants to know what the temperature of something is, does not calibrate their own instruments. I for instance do not have to care how many electrics are in a Volt, how a Horsepower is calculated, or if the speed limit on the road is 50 whether or not that's in miles or kilometers as long as the dials in my car match up.
Final Judgement:
There are in fact three systems of temperature measurement which are in common usage. In making judgement it is best to compare their usefulness; the broadest way to do this is to compare their usefulness as applied to humans. This is what the three systems feel like to a human:
On a scale of 0 to 100 in Fahrenheit, 0 is cold and 100 is hot.
On a scale of 0 to 100 in Celcius, 0 is cold and 100 is dead.
On a scale of 0 to 100 in Kelvin, 0 is dead and 100 is dead.
Immediately this becomes a question of utility, of what feels right, and of what is sensible. We can perform a sensibility test quite easily, just by asking the simple question of fact. Is the system suitable for science, and it is suitable for humans?
Fahrenheit while it is suitable for humans is also very clearly, silly. 30 degrees Fahrenheit is cold and 100 is hot. The fact that 0 is take from a specific sample of salty water, means that it is of no use at all to humans in the real world. About the only shred of utility that Fahrenheit possesses is that 100 is hot and seems like it should be intuitively hot.
Celsius is both useful for scientific studies and suitable for humans. 0 degrees Celsius is cold and quite obviously so, and while 100 is dead, 40 is hot. If it is freezing outside, then minus temperatures is excellent at communicating that. 10 is cold. 20 is nice. 30 is warm. 40 is hot. 50 is deeply unpleasant. 60 is dead. 70 is dead. 80 is dead. 100 is boiling. 180 is an oven. 700 is a fire. 5000 is the sun. This is all reasonably intiuative.
Kelvin while it is useful for scientific studies is clearly unsuitable for humans. When dealing with the cold, dark, expansive, horror of space, then Kelvin is perfectly sensible. But for looking at things which humans live inside of, although it is true that the temperature outside at the moment is 291 Kelvin, that is really really silly.
As someone who is sufficiently old enough to have been born into a world which still remembered the Imperial System, I know that I am about 6 feet tall, weigh about 140 pounds and have no idea what that is in metric. I also know how fast 80km/h is, and how fast 90mph is. A pound is a useful amount of cheese a kilo is what flour comes in. A pint is a nice amount of brown ale and 1L of milk fits in the fridge. Indeed as someone who was born into a world which still remembered the Imperial System, I straddle both worlds. Then because I am married to a very very fine lady who having been born in America has also kind of learnt to walk in two worlds, I am fine with doing Metric/Imperial mental gymnastics for ease of being understood. Nevertheless, Celsius is better because Fahrenheit is silly.
Relative to the question of how many beans are in a pile (the answer is at least 23), we should be able to put that number into the schema for what is nice. Generally speaking if there are 22 of a thing, it is nice. 23 is a clump. 24 is knowable. 25 is just about too many things. Humans do not really have intuitive powers to understand 25 things at once. Using this entirely furious spurious reasoning, then 22 then the ideal perfect number for a temperature to be nice, is 22.
22 in Celcius, is nice.
22 in Fahrenheit, is cold.
DO NOT GO OUTSIDE IF IT IS 22 KELVINS OUT THERE!
This court hereby orders that henceforth, everyone in the world uses Celsius; including you 'Murica. Stop dragging your heels. It would not take long for a generation of children to be completely fluent in metric and it will take maybe four generations for the memory to be just that, a memory. The awful truth is that Fahrenheit in a world of Celsius is very very silly. As for you Andy Ryan, while you have been forensis amicus, this court finds that the country which you live in, which is full of nutjobbers, whackjobbers, madjobbers and oddjobbers, is guilty of massive amounts of knavery designed to perpetuate stupidity.
America, you are guilty of both conspiracy and deception. You have brought hateration and holleration into this fake internet court and as you have no sensible business by continuing to use Fahrenheit when Celsius is very clearly and obviously more sensible, we order you to desist and stop this egregious pretense. If we ever see you back before this court, the penalties will be severe. Get out; lest you make a mockery of my courtroom. We are already perfectly capable of making a mockery of this fake internet courtroom as it is. You are malevolent and have now ensnared others in your villainy. Can you not see what trouble thou hast wrought?
- ROLLO75 J
(this case will be reported in FILR as H3323/1 - Ed)
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