International System of Units overhauled in historic vote

Re:International System of Units overhauled in historic vote by evil-olive on Friday November 16, 2018 @11:32PM (#18473958)

> As far as boiling and cooking, I would argue that there is no magic number anyways, since boiling point is variable by elevation. At 7500 feet / ~2250 meters, water boils at 198°F.

That's an excellent point, let's examine the relationship between altitude and boiling point, in both American units and everywhere-else-in-the-world units [0]:

5000 feet -> 202.97 F

7500 feet -> 198.33

10000 feet -> 193.6 F

Compared to:

1000 meters -> 96.73 C

2000 meters -> 93.38 C

3000 meters -> 89.95 C

In both cases, the boiling points at altitude are magic numbers. The difference is that with Celsius, you can interpret degrees as "percentage of the way from freezing to boiling". Going from 100 C at 0 meters to 90 C at 3000 meters is immediately meaningful as a 10% decrease. With degrees Fahrenheit, that same 10% drop in boiling temperature that happens at around 3000 meters / 10,000 feet is 212 F to 194 F.

0: https://www.omnicalculator.com/chemistry/boiling-point-altit...

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Re:International System of Units overhauled in historic vote by sjy on Saturday November 17, 2018 @09:01AM (#18475548)

If going from 100 °C to 90 °C was a 10% decrease, then going from 0 °C to 1 °C would be an ∞% increase. Metric units are superior to imperial for many reasons, but this isn’t one of them.

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Re:International System of Units overhauled in historic vote by gspetr on Saturday November 17, 2018 @12:12AM (#18474075)

Excellent point.

100 -> 90 is 10% decrease.

212 -> 194 is ~8.5% decrease (and I had to go out of my way to count that).

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Re:International System of Units overhauled in historic vote by atoav on Saturday November 17, 2018 @05:10AM (#18474851)

Also: Celsius converts easier to Kelvin which is sometimes useful

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