• Onionizer@geddit.social
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      2 years ago

      Only if you’re measuring water temps. In general it makes more sense to put the zero of your scale at absolute zero

    • desttinghim@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Fahrenheit’s 0 is the freezing point of water - salt water that is. Not that I think it’s better, just that there was some thought put into it.

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        It… isn’t. That would change wildly depending on which sea/ocean you get your saltwater from (more salt = colder freezing point).

        It really is defined relative to a very specific brine mixture (in the most scientifically generous origin story - some say he literally just measured the coldest winter day he could). Well except it isn’t anyway, because like all US units nowadays it’s defined against metric units (namely the Kelvin, just like 0°C is actually defined to be 273.15 K).