Is -6 colder than -8?

[sushi]

I once heard a quick and simple conversion from C to F:

Take C, double it, then add 30.​

A couple of examples:

0 C --> 30 F (Actual is 32 F)​

100 C --> 230 F (Actual is 212 F)​

Both of these are pretty close for a simple approximation.

What I find funny, is even after all these years of living in countries that use C as their temperature measurement, I still think in terms of F.

 

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

LOL. Never planning on traveling out of the US?

Not really. All I need is here. Plus there's an easy formula to convert temperature: C*9/5+32=F. Are you saying that when everyone in the UK hears the weather in F they automatically know it in C?

 

[yellow]

Take C, double it, then add 30.​

Agreed. Simple and close enough.

Are you saying that when everyone in the UK hears the weather in F they automatically know it in C?

Frankly, since most of the world uses Celsius, I don't imagine they hear Fahrenheit too often at all.

 

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

That's why.

I forgot that I work at NASA. Thanks for the reminder. Lives were at stake.

 

[sushi]

That's why.

Reminds me of an autopilot screw up that involved the square root of a number. The engineering team forgot that the square root of a number can be a negative as well as a positive number.

Then again, on a different topic, imaginary numbers are always the most fun!

 

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

I once heard a quick and simple conversion from C to F:

Take C, double it, then add 30.​

A couple of examples:

0 C --> 30 F (Actual is 32 F)​

100 C --> 230 F (Actual is 212 F)​

Both of these are pretty close for a simple approximation.

What I find funny, is even after all these years of living in countries that use C as their temperature measurement, I still think in terms of F.

I've never heard of that approximation, but it's pretty neat. For some reason I always remembered the actual formula.

 

[72930]

I recently was speaking to someone that while in a conversation (something about likelyhood of dying at different speeds), argued that 80% chance of death was not equal to 20% of surviving. When I finally convinced him he said:

"Oh yeah, I wasn't counting the hundred percent"

 

[yellow]

For some reason I always remembered the actual formula.

Slightly harder for the Average Joe to do in his head, methinks.

 

[sushi]

I've never heard of that approximation, but it's pretty neat. For some reason I always remembered the actual formula.

Same here. And when calculating I use the actual formulas for converting both ways.

But when I want a quick approximation, doubling C and then adding 30 is so quick and easy to do in your head.

 

[mrfrosty]

No, it doesn't. She still sounds like a 'tard. And lay off about my site. Do you have a site? Mine is being redone anyway.

I'll admit she does sound like a tard, I just don't like the word to be honest. Stop being so defensive about your site its not all that bad.......though i do find climate change an hilarious topic.....

To explain, I'm a defeatist. IMHO there is nothing we can do so i'd rather just enjoy the weather and keep burning the oil. The world has a vast surplus population, millions of people are already starving to death as it is! What does the world do to help ? Have a concert, WOW big help ! To think any government more than superficially cares about climate change is frankly balls. Of course humanity may end up in another ice age and we would perhaps emerge from the other side back in the stone age.....but would that be so bad ? I don't think so. At least humanity could look forward to the birth of the iStone...

 

[cazlar]

You know what makes the most sense? The Kelvin. Zero is absolute zero, and everything else is warmer than that. If you guys were so perfect why don't you all use that?

I agree, but unfortunately going around quoting temps in Kelvin doesn't seem to work too well in real life... At least Kelvin and Celcius are on the same scale, just different start points.

I've been living here in the US for >6 mths now and still have no idea of what the weather on the news means as I can't be bothered to convert it to C. Luckily at work everything I deal with is metric (science).

 

[BreederCreature]

I wish the US would switch to metric and celsius. I plan on traveling a lot and I wish I only had a language barrier to deal with haha. In middle school I had heard about a slow transition to metric and celsius that would happen throughout the states, but now that I'm in college I have a feeling it’s never happening.

I believe the woman with the lotto ticket "confusion" knows she made a mistake and just feels like an idiot, so she's playing it off like she is an actual idiot

 

[Cromulent]

You mean "That's fahrenheit - not your standard units used everywhere else in the world except for the US who still can't figure out an easier system"

Surely Kelvin is an easier system? Absolute zero = 0 degrees K. But then I guess you would need to remember that water freezes at 273 degrees then .

 

[Queso]

Of course humanity may end up in another ice age and we would perhaps emerge from the other side back in the stone age.....but would that be so bad ? I don't think so. At least humanity could look forward to the birth of the iStone...

You see, that's the issue I have with most human beings. They only ever think in terms of human beings. The ecosystem relies on millions upon millions of other species. Global warming has the potential to be an extinction event of the kind that hasn't been seen for hundreds of millions of years, even surpassing the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, but humans can only consider the effect it will have on us.

We're stupid pathetic apes that should never have come down from the trees. The truly sad thing is we think we're clever.

 

[koobcamuk]

Yes. That was my point.

I am agreeing with you.

......though i do find climate change an hilarious topic.....

I don't think it's funny - we are seriously screwed unless something changes in the next 50 years. In 50 years, I might find the whole thing funny - we'll see.

The truly sad thing is we think we're clever.

Nice post. (Although the girl quoted in the article posted by the OP... hmm... I don't think she thinks she's clever).

 

[Queso]

Nice post. (Although the girl quoted in the article posted by the OP... hmm... I don't think she thinks she's clever).

On the contrary, it appears she's convinced of it

 

[koobcamuk]

On the contrary, it appears she's convinced of it

We're all doomed aren't we?

 

[Hydramus]

Surely Kelvin is an easier system? Absolute zero = 0 degrees K. But then I guess you would need to remember that water freezes at 273 degrees then .

Kelvin is great, but not that practical for day to day use. Also water freezes at 273.16 K... or is it 273.15K? I can't remember.

 

[shikimo]

You mean "That's fahrenheit - not your standard units used everywhere else in the world except for the US who still can't figure out an easier system"

The man's got a point. However, after living in Europe for a few years I have to say that Fahrenheit is more precise in terms of identifying the weather; the difference between, say, 12C and 13C is almost 2 entire degrees F (53.6-55.4), which makes it just a tiny bit harder to choose which hat to wear .

Not really. All I need is here.

This is to me more alarming than the math genius at the top of the thread.

Unless of course you use the phrase 'all I need' in the HD Thoreau sense of the term, in which case you would be 100% correct...but then you wouldn't be using a computer .

 

[xUKHCx]

Kelvin is great, but not that practical for day to day use. Also water freezes at 273.16 K... or is it 273.15K? I can't remember.

273.16 is the triple point of water
273.15 is the freezing point of water

If everyone used it all the time you'd get used to it so then it would be practical for everyday use.

 

[twoodcc]

wow, just wow.

More than 15m adults in Britain have poor numeracy

what's with you Brits and math?

 

[Cromulent]

wow, just wow.



what's with you Brits and math?

What's with you Americans and geography?

 

[twoodcc]

What's with you Americans and geography?

what about us? i was just quoting the article

 

[notjustjay]

Take C, double it, then add 30.

I've learned to use this as well when doing in-my-head conversions, although I think I stumbled on the pattern myself. It's certainly not far from the actual formula, 9/5 is almost double.

 

[atszyman]

I have an unscientific theory that people from colder climates are more likely to know how negative numbers work. Where I live, everyone knows -30 is totally-****-yourself ****ing cold, whereas -15 is only completely ****ing cold. That's all Fahrenheit, not your crazy european units.

I think the concept that larger numeric values are actually the smaller values when the negative sign is applied is a baffling concept to many people.

You mean "That's fahrenheit - not your standard units used everywhere else in the world except for the US who still can't figure out an easier system"

But with Fahrenheit you eliminate most of the confusion by keeping many temps below freezing as positive numbers thus people don't start to get confused with the whole negative bit. 20 is colder than 30, that's easy.... and negative numbers are just really cold.

I've never heard of that approximation, but it's pretty neat. For some reason I always remembered the actual formula.

I've always derived the formula in my head when needed. with 212 <=> 100 and 32 <=> 0 I can always manage to figure out the formula with a little thought.

Kelvin would be the best just because we could completely eliminate negative temperatures and avoid confusing those who can't seem to grasp the concept of a number line.....

Or we could just live somewhere where it's always -40 degrees and no one would ever have to worry about units... except for those who want Kelvin....