Hacker News Reader

Comment by Symbiote | Hacker News Reader

You are kidding yourself if you think you can tell the difference between 23.0°C and 23.5°C.

Your used to it, and the explanation is an invented justification.

I lived all my life in metric countries, and have never heard anyone use a decimal to describe the weather, except for a record (47.6°C or whatever it is).

View on HN

Ding, ding, ding. I have always heard this "explanation" and it amuses me to no end. I also heard the version that human height is more intuitive in feet and inches and weight in pounds. Fortunately this is harmless.

In my (German-made) car the temperature can be toggled up/down by one degree Fahrenheit. If I switch it to Celsius, an additional digit is displayed which shows either a 0 or 5 that lets me select the temperature in 0.5C degree increments.

To me, this is a pretty clear indication that people can feel the difference in half degrees Celsius (otherwise, why would the manufacturer bother with it?). And because of that, Fahrenheit is better for human-scale temperatures, as only two significant digits are required instead of three.

People can feel the difference between a particular air conditioner blowing cool air at intensity 3 versus intensity 4, which is what these "temperature" dials boil down to.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they can distinguish two identical rooms with 0.5°C temperature difference.

Fahrenheit and Celsius have a thing where one degree in Celsius equals about two degrees in Fahrenheit. I think your car computer prefers Fahrenheit and misrepresents the exact values.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com