What the Fahrenheit?!
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- čas přidán 10. 06. 2024
- The crazy story of the arbitrary temperature scale used in a tiny minority of countries.
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Music by Kevin MacLeod: incompetech.com "Modern Piano Zeta - Improbable" "Ice Demon" "Divertimento K131" "Sneaky Adventure" "Sheep May Safely Graze" "Professor and the Plant"
References:
A History of the Thermometer and its uses in Meteorology by W. E. Knowles Middleton
Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman
The Science of Measurement, A Historical Survey by Herbert Arthur Klein
Lehrbuch der Chemie by Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Script:
As an Australian-Canadian the Fahrenheit temperature scale always seemsed a bit arbitrary. I mean why does water freeze at 32 degrees? And what exactly does zero represent?
According to many sources the Fahrenheit scale was defined by setting zero degrees equal to the temperature of an ice, salt, and water mixture and 100 degrees being roughly equal to human body temperature. But that isn’t true.
The real story is much more interesting, and scientific...
August 14th 1701 was almost certainly the worst day in the life of fifteen year-old Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. On that day both of his parents died suddenly from mushroom poisoning. He was sent from Poland, where he lived, to Amsterdam to become an apprentice bookkeeper.
But Fahrenheit couldn’t stand his apprenticeship and ran away so many times his employers put out a warrant for his arrest. Traveling from city to city around Europe, he became fascinated with scientific instruments and in particular thermometers.
In 1708, possibly seeking help with the warrant, Fahrenheit met with the mayor of Copenhagen, who happened to be the famous astronomer Ole Romer.
Romer is known for observing the eclipses of Jupiter’s moons and realizing that variations in the timing of those eclipses was caused by the time it took light to reach Earth. In other words, he found a way to accurately measure the finite speed of light.
But more pertinent to this story, in 1702 Romer was housebound after breaking his leg. To pass the time he devised a new temperature scale with the freezing point of water at 7.5 degrees and body temperature at 22.5 degrees.
This might seem odd until you consider that Romer wanted the boiling point of water to be 60 degrees (as an astronomer, he had experience dividing things by 60). If you take this scale, divide it in half, in half again, and in half once more, you find the freezing point of water 1/8th up the scale, and human body temperature 3/8th up the scale.
So at their meeting in 1708, Fahrenheit learned of Romer’s temperature scale and adopted it as his own, adjusting it slightly because he found it “inconvenient and inelegant on account of the fractional numbers”. So he scaled them up to 8 and 24.
That is the original Fahrenheit scale. He produced thermometers for some time using this scale.
But then, at some later time Fahrenheit multiplied all numbers on his scale by four, setting freezing point to the now familiar 32 and body temperature to 96. It’s unclear exactly why he did this. He may just have wanted finer precision in his measurements but I think there was a better reason.
You see, Fahrenheit was an excellent instrument maker. His thermometers agreed with each other precisely, at a time when that was unheard of. He pioneered the use of mercury as a measuring liquid, which has the benefit of a much higher boiling point than the alcohol used in most other thermometers at the time. For these accomplishments, he was inducted into the British Royal Society.
And we know he read the works of Newton, Boyle, and Hooke, in which he would have come across the idea that a one degree increase in temperature should correspond to a specific fractional increase in the volume of the measuring liquid.
And today a one degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature increases the volume of mercury by exactly one part in 10,000. Is this just a coincidence? We’ll probably never know for sure because as an instrument maker Fahrenheit was secretive about his methods. But I think the data strongly suggests this was the case.
So what exactly did zero represent on the scales of Fahrenheit and Romer? By many accounts it’s the temperature of a salt, ice and water mixture. But there are different descriptions of these mixtures and none of them actually produces the temperature they’re supposed to. More likely I think they picked the coldest temperature in winter, set that as zero and later used ice and brine to calibrate new thermometers. Now his scale is only used regularly in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Belize, oh and the United States of America.
The main reason we have Fahrenheit is so that we can go outside in 69 degree weather and say “Nice.”
I would like give a "like" to your comment, but you just got 69, so i refuse to destroy the perfection
Bruh you have 69 likes
edit: noooooooooooo somebody ruined it :(
"Nice."
@@neitomonoma4699 Adding my like to your comment instead.
@@abeke5523 😭😭 Yeah. But now, i can give him my like
"so, maybe it's time for us to adopt global scale of temperature"
Kelvin: woo, yea
"Celsius"
Kelvin: I feel so shocked and betrayed right now
kelvin is actually the same as celsius. It just starts from absolute zero. One k equals to 1 celsius.
@@Martink9191 Nope 0°C = 273Kelvin
@@ujjwal2473 you are right, but that does not mean I am wrong either.
You don't get it, dont you?
@@ujjwal2473 actually 0 °C = 273.15 K
To be fair celsius is degree scale (every degree celsius is equally spaced, 0⁰C is the freezing point of water and isnt the bottom of the scale also negative temperatures don't indicate negative energy increments )
Kelvin in an absolute scale (every K is equally spaced same distance of celsius but 0 K means 0 and cant get colder in an appreciable sense, this also means 20 K is twice as hot as 10 K
It's funny that here in India, we measure atmospheric temperatures in Celsius but body temperatures in Fahrenheit. I've always wondered how that came to be.
Maybe because it is has wider range, hence more precision.
Same in Bangladesh
@@VikashKumar-fr1db so as per your conclusion if i would use a thermometer that would display the temperature with 3 decimals it would instantly become the most powerfull thermometer in existence? No, the range is dependent on the make of thermometer you buy, so every type of thermometer has the range of the instrument used. Simple as that. If i buy a scientific thermometer capable of even detecting a change of microkelvin ( or microcelsius, same scale) i would be able to get a better precision then, the only difference i see on the surface is that an instrument calibrated to work on kelvin would be cheaper altough it would probably come woth integrated conversion.
british colonialism, probably
Same in Bangladesh.
Things are even more fucked up. We measure distance in Meter scale, but human height in inches/feet, also we calculate house surface area in Square feet. We use grams or KGs for weight of everything... but bakeries for some reason keeps using Pound (except in Dhaka).
Legally everything is converted to International Standard but people keep using both in day to day life.
3:17 if you pause at the right time Fahrenheit has 3 eyes
I saw that lol
No?
I paused at 4 eyes lolo
What the heck?
3 EYES OMG HELP ALIEN
pffft, we all know the true masterrace of temperature is Kelvin
absolutely right!
Bah, the °N scale deviced by Sir Isaac Newton introduces the use of freezing and boiling of water (used by Kelvin and Celsius) aswell as the temperature of the human body (Used by Fahrenheit) as reference points. So the degree Newton scale is the grand daddy. It also gives you the heat at midday in the month of july as an even integer (6 °N) and "the greatest heat of a bath which one can endure for some time when the hand is dipped in and kept still" ( 17 °N). Very handy and intuitive.
+Gain Medium F {™[!----!![[™(+(+!(((((##@(€(#!!!!!!!!+#=£™##£££££====™™™™!
Smackbox your obsession with pedantic notation is betrayed by your lack of understanding of the underlying units. For instance, only Fahrenheit and Celsius are measured in degrees. The others are just units without a degree note. The more you know.
Actually, the true masterrace is Joule.
So basically Fahrenheit exists because the creator was bored.
Okay...
So many inventions exist because someone was bored! Our creativity actually peaks when we are bored.
It exists because he made really high quality thermometers which happened to be in a scale he made up. Pushing his ideas through marketing, basically.
The video clearly explains that the fahrenheit scale exists because of the expansion rate of mercury. Do you have to watch the video again?
@@TboneI989 mercury also expands at a consistent rate per one Kelvin.
AMERICA
You can remember that Celsius didn't make it because it was originally named "centigrade".
"As an Australian Canadian,"
That explains a lot.
I am also Australian Canadian
Sorry, mate
@@massivecowbreakout7555 same
This does explain why he is intelligent.
@@microwavabletoothbrush Yes. Please explain what Celcius (with two Cs) is exactly?
“Maybe it’s time we adopted the global scale”
America: No, I don’t think I will
North America*
@@StewyGeoduck Canadians got it
@@Sakiayuo Canada FTW!
Add CGP Grey to that list. 😵
@@Sakiayuo Can still switch
What is Fahrenheit? Useless.
Same goes for inches and miles.
Unlike inches and miles, Fahrenheit is not quite as stupid, as neither Fahrenheit nor Celcius are based on anything absolute (freezing and boiling points of water vary with pressure). Kelvin is the way to go :P
You realize that Celsius is just a 273 degree offset of Kelvin right?
Ever heard of decimeter?
Aaaaaahahahaha the American has never heard of a decimeter before
Aahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaa
Scott uhm 2 inches = 5.2cm = 0.52dm = 0.052m
Growing up in Sydney (as an Australian-Australian )in the 60's we actually had fahrenheit until we went metric in the 70's and converted to celsius.
It’s funny how you guys adapt to progress generally and Americans ABSOLUTELY FREAK OUT AT ANY SUGGESTION OF CHANGE
@@drnima if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
@@drnima Amercians learn both Celsius and Fahrenheit. Celsius is learned for scientific method and Fahrenheit is learned and used since it has suited well for over 200 years plus it is more precise than Celsius.
@@kuuryotwo5153 but... It kinda is broken as the rest of the world sighs when hearing about Fahrenheit... :/
@@darrenhughes5576 it is more precise? What? The Kelvin scale literally is Celsius just - 273 degrees as it's absolut. You pretty much can't get more precise than that. There is a reason science uses Kelvin and Celsius. "science uses Celsius" yet u say Fahrenheit is more precise. Don't you contradict yourself?
0:42 wrong Poland shape. This borders has been made after WW2
Naw, look closer, at the Kaliningrad Oblast. These borders are neither current nor historical.
So you’re just gonna leave without telling me who invented Celsius?
There's a video about it
Veritasium has a video about it. That's why.
czcams.com/video/rjht4oAByCI/video.html
czcams.com/video/rjht4oAByCI/video.html
czcams.com/video/rjht4oAByCI/video.html
As a resident of the US, I say BRING ON THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!
The sooner the better! When I was in grade school, decades ago (early-mid 80's), teachers were saying that by the time I was entering the work force, the US would be full-on metric compliant. yeah, right. like, thirty something years later, no go. we've a ridiculous hodge-podge of imperial and metric. gas in gallons,. soft drinks in litres, except for single serve 20 oz bottles. but, water is sold in .5 liter single serve, but gallons as the larger quantity! WT actual F! So stupid.
Not only that, but the U.S. gallon and fluid oz are different than imperial gallons and oz. Almost as bad as the mile, which is different on land and on water. Oh, and then with weight there's two types of ounces too. The regular one and the troy oz for gold and silver.
Thank you sir!
The only real reason the US still has the imperial system is because comfort of not needing to change. You get used to things, and then you won't let go of it. That's why I still hear british people use miles, yard, inches, whatever even though they already adopted the metric system.
My problem when being confronted with the imperial system is that each messurement scales differently.
The only thing I really learned is that about 80 degree Fahrenheit is considered warm and that the keys of a keyboard are 1x1 inch in diameter aswell as that one yard is basically one meter.
+The German Mason Actually, it's not just because of not wanting to change. It also has to do with how much it would cost to change everything over to metric...which would be a lot. And also needing to educate some 300 million people about a completely different system than what they're used to, which will be troublesome to accomplish. If we were a smaller country, it wouldn't be as much of a problem converting to metric, but that isn't the case. We're one of the largest and most populous countries in the world. Switching to metric wouldn't be a simple process for us.
donald trump will do
I'm an American living abroad and I can deal quite easily with metric measurements... except temperature. My brain just really loves the Fahrenheit scale. Sure. I've learned some "milestone" temps over my time abroad, but I still translate them into Fahrenheit even though I deal with grams as grams, centimeters as centimeters and so on. It's weird.
Love? You mean.. Used to?
@@lenowoo Apologies for using humor. I lost my stick. Could you bend over so I can borrow yours?
here: 0= ice freezes, below 15=kinda cold, 20 =indoor temp, 30=ok, that´s enough now, 40= I´m dying.., 100=water boils. There. I fixed it. Now you can stop using retarded units of measure.
@@wtfucrazy 30 ok?? freaking hot. 23, 24 is "ok"
@@dhexdev7417 yeah that´s what I mean "that´s enough now". That is a hot summer day by the beach and I don´t want any more.
So, the temp of boiling water was originally set at 60.. then everything got multiplied by 4 - giving us the now used boiling point at 240 deg F. Thanks, Veritasium!
Trololololol
Can confirm that water indeed boils when it's 240 degrees
@@TheRoboticLlama Actually.....water can't get to 240 degrees, at least not at sea level pressure. It'll go to 212º and stick right there until it all boils away.
well yeah, the video is wrong. see you noticed!
I proudly use Celsius. I'm in America
Tarek Midani damn son niiiice
You should be an inspiration to all your co-citizens.
Which country mate? I'm from Argentina!!
Its kind of odd because everything above introductory science in grade school uses the metric system. I guess we Americans like to hold onto the past... BACK TO BACK WORLD WAR CHAMPS!! WHOO
RentableWand america did relatively little in ww1 though.
The best part of this collaboration is that i know perfectly the story of this temperature scale 😆
marcello ascani We!
marcello ascani omg Marcello che fa un video per Veritasium! :O
due dei miei canali preferiti!
come vi siete messi in contatto?
Ma i confini della polonia che ai tempi era mezzo continente piu' in fondo?
marcello ascani visited your channel to check out the vids u make... dint understand anything😂😂
Ma come hai fatto a finire qui...xD.
Stupendi i disegni comunque :)
3:55 - not true. Canadians use the Fahrenheit scale for cooking and our thermometers, in spite of our pretending to be better than Americans, quite regularly. Not exclusively of course but especially in cooking. We hardly ever state cooking temperatures in Celsius.
We don’t like to admit it but we do.
🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Yes, ovens in Canada default to F but that's mainly because there are so many old and/or American recipes that it's just more practical. Aside from that niche scenario, I know of no other use of F in Canadian society.
@@inlineblue Where I live F also has a convenience factor as we never have to use negative numbers when talking about the weather since it never goes below zero. I imagine thats not true in Canada.
@@lunaticbz3594 Having zero as freezing point is the biggest convenience especially for the weather, that's the point things happen, melty or freezy... like it's enough for the weatherman to say 'negative temperatures expected at night' and everybody knows what it means, take your potted plants inside, roads will be slippy drive carefully etc. You don't even have to remember the numbers if minus was mentioned it's freezing. In farenheit it's like was it 27 or 37? And what's the problem americans have with negative numbers? All the rest of the world uses celsius and has no problem with negative numbers.
@@johncoolberg You have to remember the temperature things happen at for everything other then water in Celsius, so really it only saves you from remembering two numbers. And you still have to remember the numbers or remember that its based on water.
Americans have a positive attitude. :p
Though for most the U.S. they do have to use negative temperatures in Fahrenheit as well, I just live in the south. We don't get that cold here.
Celsius is really useful in science since its tied into the other measurements. For day to day life it provides nothing of value over other systems.
Similar to how lots of brits use inches and feet
I’m an American living abroad and I don’t get what’s so hard about Celsius. Learned it in school, used it in chemistry class, most home thermometers had both scales and it was hard not to notice what the °C scale said. Now have a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer and it is in Celsius mode just because that way it matches my thermostats and I can tell others what the temperature in my neighborhood is and they know what I’m talking about.
So, basically, people used fahrenheit because it was a high quality tool rather than it being a good scale?
Yes. It was just that.
In a sense. People used Fahrenheit because for quite some time it was the best scale (and tool) on offer. It's a perfectly good unit for measuring temperature, if inconvenient for scientific use (which needs to be both accurate and repeatable).
StrunDoNhor
For me it dont make sense.
Well, the idea to have units related to each other (which is why SI is sooooo good for calculations) was first proposed a little before Fahrenheit did all this, and it had to come a long way to become what SI is now. I suppose easing calculations wasn't as important as having precise (and consistent) measurements, and so people just used the unit their thermometer came with.
No, it's better because it's better at describing the temperature.
The imperial system is a mistake. The international system is sooo much easier to use. Just look at the prefixes, for example. 1 kilometer = 1000 meters. 1 kilogram = 1000 grams. 1 centimeter = 0,01 meters.
***** I know it's easy for americans, of course. But america needs to stop teaching imperial and start teaching international. Or at least, something slower, like teaching both, then teaching the imperial with less effort, then after a while start teaching just the international system.
No it actually is easier, because you can relate any two given lengths or volumes or whatever without having to memorize how many inches are in a foot, feet in a yard, yards in a mile. The metric system is also infinitely scalable, you want an easier way of writing 1600000000 kilometers? That's just 1.6 petameters. you want to express 1/1000000000 meters? That's one nanometer. The system of prefixes is the same whether you're talking about volumes, lengths, degrees, joules, grams, etc. The Imperial system's smallest measurement of length is the thousandth of an inch, but that's borrowing from metric by dividing a root unit by multiples of ten.
Right, I remember the last time I needed to measure something in kilodegrees
No you don't, you never use prefixed larger than kilo with meter (or gram)
Tons are used. 1 Ton = 1000 Kg = 1 Mg
Mass is somewhat special because the official unit is the kilogram instead of the gram, so it includes a prefix. Although, in science you can skip prefixes altogether by using scientific notation, for example 45 MPa = 4.5*10^7 Pa
Wow, i wasn't expecting seeing an animation made by Marcello in one of your videos, nice
Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!
Fahrenheit's early thermometers used spirit wine and one degree of change was equal to 1/500th change in volume of the liquid used. When he switched to using mercury, multiplying the scale by four maintained a one degree change for 1/10000th change in the volume of the mercury. It wasn't an arbitrary decision.
damn ur smart
He needs to see this comment
Bumpy bump
Maybe he sipped the mercury as he did the alcohol?
If you made the cross-sectional area of the gauge four times larger then the scale would remain the same. Subsequently this does not seem like adequate motivation to be the driving force to change the scale. Just a thought.
Fahrenheit edited the astronomer’s scale because he found fractions impractical and inconvenient. Now however, the only major country utilizing his scale is a country whose measurement system is based on fractions. How ironic.
I’m confused isn’t every measurement system based on fractions? A centimeter is 1/100th of a meter same for liters and so on
@@jacobhall3186 Americans say "1/4 of an inch", we say "0.635 centimeters". Do you understand now? All of their mwasurements are based on fractions, whereas the metric system uses decimals.
Liam Fisher decimals and fractions are the same thing just written differently. I can just as easily say .25 or a quarter of an inch or 1/2 of a meter. You can write .635 as 635/1000 or 127/200. It’s just a different way of writing it. Numbers don’t change because they’re applied to a different system.
@@jacobhall3186 I guess you don't realize what is actually the convinience of decimal. It's just straightfoward. It's powers of 10.
How many cm is 567,208 meters? 56,720,800cm. How many kilometers is that? 567.208km. I don't even have to calculate. How many milimeters are there in 21 meters? 21,000mm.
So, let me ask you, how many feet are there in a mile? Btw, aren't there different types of mile? What is even up with that?
Léo Bitencourt no there’s only one type of mile which is 5280 feet.
Loved the animations so much.
Fahrenheit makes sense from a human centric perspective and most people use temperature mostly to know how it will feel to them. 100f is hot but not death and 0f is cold but not death. But 0c is just kinda cold and 100c is death.
Fahrenheit, Yards, Inches, Miles and Pounds. Why can't we have a universal coding?
Yeh True dat!
SI (Système International) units. Meter (length), liter (volume), gram (mass), Newton (weight), Kelvin/Celsius (temperature), second (time), and others.
Like what the rest of the world already has? :P
+Be Cool or Be Cast Out! The seven base SI units are the ampere, candela, Kelvin, kilogram, meter, mole, and second. Every other one is defined in relation with these.
Allan Song I was just giving some examples.
Fahrenheit is such a cool last name
How did the Egyptians measure temperature?
*THEY USED PHARAOHEIT*
WHAT'S A PHARAOHEIT?
About five feet ten.
Why.
I think your _pharaohmones_ are attracting all of these lame jokes.
Зонт Pharaoh nuff.
I do want to say that growing up in the United States and living there my entire life, the Fahrenheit scale is ingrained into my mind. Whenever someone says 20 degrees without giving the scale I think that's cold, but then get confused when they say that is a comfortable temperature. All other metric units (especially length), I can grasp how they exist without thinking about it. Someone tells me somethings a meter wide, I understand what they mean. Same thing if they tell me they have a litter of water or even a kilogram of metal. I can either picture those units or image their mass (or weight at Earth's gravity). But when It comes to temperature, no matter how hard I try I cannot intuitively grasp Celsius. I can only grasp the feel for 0 and 100 (+/-1) in Celsius and obviously -40 since they is where both scale meet, but all other points I cannot conceptualize. Given Temperature is the one thing we always experience 24/7 365 days a year and will regularly want to know the temperature, is may be the one type of measurement that simple education alone cannot teach the ability to conceptualize in ones mind, to understand its feel.
well unlike the other US measurements like feet etc, fahrenheit doesnt really have anything wrong with it so i wouldnt feel bad about not using celsius. i wanted to learn the fahrenheit scale so i just changed all my temperature apps to fahrenheit and when i went outside and checked the temperature i'd be able to make the connection between the feeling and the number on the fahrenheit scale. i fully changed them to fahrenheit (no celsius at all) because i dont really need to be told what it is in celsius since i can easily figure that out myself by going outside, maybe you can do the same, i'm getting pretty good at understanding the fahrenheit scale, at least for the temperatures i've experienced so far
You already got 100 and 0 right? now you just need memorize, 37 normal body temperature, 20 - 25 perfect weather, 15 - 20 nice, 10 - 15 chill, 5 - 10 cold, 0 - 5 freaking cold xD.
For me it's the other way round. I have a thermometer that shows both Celsius and Fahrenheit so each time I look at it I would see both - but I still can't make the connection between them. All I know is that at 80 Fahrenheit it's getting nice and comfortably warm. But everything else makes no sense.
@@danielnoriega6655-30 cold, but not to bad with the right clothes -40 just stay inside.
It all comes down to mental conditioning. But I'd say Fahrenheit is a better scale for day to day use (ex. 60s is all a similar range, whereas 20s in Celsius is a much larger range). That and better precision without going into decimals. Where metric really takes the cake is in all other measurements, because of ease of conversions, ex. meters to kilometers vs feet to miles.
May it's time the world all adopted the Fahrenheit scale.
He just stole someguy's number and multiplied it by 4.
that's the EU for you... if there not trying to ban it, then they're trying to steal it.
Stole, adapted, and multiple by four
@@danielkerr4100 I wonder if Americans got it from somewhere... We should ask the biggest colonizer in history or it's victims like India.
He took someone elses measurment, rounded it off and _then_ multiplied it by 4... That's just sloppy :(
Fahrenheit needs to disappear IMO.
I should invent a new language "WENGLISH". I'll just take normal english words, then add 4 letters to each one. Then, redefine each word to the opposite meanings.
So if you want to tell someone to "NO, STOP" it will now look like "vcbjYES, zxqrSTART". I'm sure everyone will want to completely change to this new language right away
I was with you until the end. The common temperature of the US ranges from 0 to 100 Fahrenheit, with anything negative or three digits being extreme. This makes a lot more sense than some random -17 to 38 Celsius range.
I like how you pick the Fahrenheit range to compare with Celsius, but depending on where you live, most temperatures fall into the -40C to +40C range, which has a nice symmetry to it, from very cold to very hot. And the sign change happens when rain changes to snow, puddles freeze, frost forms etc.
There's nothing better with Fahreinheit than celcius... Same with your other systems yard, mile, meters,
Porglit That's just because you're used to it. Everyone else uses Celcius, and there is a reason for that.
0 degree Celsius to 100 degree Celsius makes more sense than 32 Fahrenheit to 212 Fahrenheit... Don't even try argue this cos it's the same logic as what you said eh ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯ (used google to convert)
Veritasium -40 is common? I beg to differ. The only places that get those temperatures with any regularity are places with regular extreme temperatures... which is still extreme.
Perhaps I could put it this way: the comfort range for Fahrenheit is much more intuitive than it is for Celsius. I truly doubt many people would call -40 anywhere near that.
The animation was quite amazing 💕💕
The story glosses over the most important reason Fahrenheit is still popular in places-the scale readings 0-100 easily describe the range of atmospheric conditions completely in a convenient 100 point space. Zero is damn cold and 100 is pretty damn hot, Celsius fails that miserably. Zero is cool (us midwesterners don’t really call that cold) and 17 nice and 35 hot??? Not easy.
In science? I’m all about Celsius. Weather forecasts? Celsius sucks.
Celsius sucks for science - you want Kelvin, or Rankine.
@@gwzipper1 Depends on the science you are doing. If I am doing stability studies, for example, plotting vs 1/K helps greatly. Thermodynamics, K again. A lot of other things we do, though, Celsius id better suited (general observations etc).
@@MichaelDeninger kTB works best if you use Kelvin
illustration and animation are phenomenal
Marcello Ascani and shits
gregkrazanski '+^°«
gregkrazanski
gregkrazanski
it was weird, Peoples don't write like that lepers.
4:00 You can't throw away thermometers like this, mercury is bad for the environment. :(
Not Freddy Mercury
Roman Tom is that supposed to be a joke ?
lol no its not, its bad for living beeings
@@kippesolo8941 Living beings are in the environment...
@@Hexstream no not in every. so u can throw them away like that
Marsello Ascani, you did amazing job!
"Someone named Fahrenheit moved from Poland, where he lived"
-puts modern borders on the map
Only someone from the New World could do that
I'm American and I hate our bizarre measuring systems. Miles? Gallons? Fahrenheit? Even hours seem idiotic!
Jimmy Carter promised to get us all on the metric system in ten years. That was a mistake. We should have simply stopped using the old way right then and started changing road signs and school books all at once.
unfortunately I don't think we have an alternative to hours
Hours are actually alright. They are in base-12 kinda like dozens.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time
Dozens aren't alright :\
Nothing wrong with kiloseconds if you want something easy to work with.
Fahrenheit should be abolished.
So should miles, inches, feet and all those weird arbirtary units
Celsius is no less weird and arbitrary. Non-absolute temperature measurements make no sense.
in fact the temperature scale in the SI is kelvin that is conveniently equal to celsius exept for the offset of 273.15
Nguyen Quan nobody cares edgelord
Celsius is based around water, innit? So, does that mean the kilogram and litre are also weird and arbitrary?
3:20 Love the cameo Veritasium animation there.
I always assumed that 0-100 F was supposed to be roughly the range of temperature that humans live in.
It kind of is, but only by accident. Which is why nothing lines up nicely and the scale is maddening to anyone who isn't used to it.
@@twistedtachyon5877 as a canadian it makes zero sense to me
"roughly" exactly why Imperial measures make no sense at all. In science it all should be "Precise" not roughly... Actually not even in science simple day to day tasks, like doing a maintenance at your house, why would you roughly measure 2.54 cm (1 inch) for anything like wtf... 5 foot 8 for a hight measure, when you can just say 172cm? Like come on, its so over to much
@@l.lawliet46 fr, its boggling
@@l.lawliet46 exact opposite. Why say 172cm (a huge number) when you can divide it into 5'8? Customary is better for contemporary and everyday use as it is more familiar and divisible while celsius is good for science with its base-10 structure.
Americans just can't move on... :|
Akshat giri Most Americans know both systems and use both of them. The metric system is used in school more than the imperial system.
I live in California.. And they don't use both systems.. I mentioned Celsius once and a lot of the kids looked at me like they didnt even know it.. Most Americans don't have any idea on how long a meter is by estimation.. I had to learn the imperial system and tbh it is pretty useless..
Akshat giri Well maybe they were just surprised because they're not used to someone mentioning it. But I know in my state we hardly ever use the imperial system in school, so pretty much everyone knows it. But if you're in a foreign country then you really shouldn't expect things to be the same anyway.
yet the rest of the world can't move on and let us be us ;D
I don't like metric ok. shshshshsh
Poland was shaped differently that time, just saying 0:42
it is also shaped differently today
SO I was raised in Canada were after years of being taught imperial measurements I was suddenly switched to metric. So ask me the temp in the winter and you are getting it in Celsius but in the summer it's likely in Fahrenheit.
I read something about the scale going from 0 to 96 where 96 was human body temperature, but, that that interval was originally divided into 12 sections of 8 degrees each.
This could've made a very fun parallel with how length was measured in feet, inches, and eighths of an inch. "How hot is it outside today?" "About 9 inches! Couldn't ask for a nicer day!"
Temperatures are like operating systems. Fahrenheit is the Mac, Celsius is Windows, and Kelvin is Linux.
Except that Windows is basically crap while Linux would be 1000x better if it could run games aswell as windows could. The only difference between Celsius and Kelvin is that 0°K is the absolute zero which allows you to do math with temperatures without messing everything up (the scale is the same though)
The German Mason When making the comparisons, i was mostly using stereotypes. Although the fact that windows runs games better makes it a better operating system for people who just use it to play games.
What would Rankine be....Unix?
carultch I think UNIX is Linux based.
alexdiezg I thought it was the other way around.
I don't know why Fahrenheit even exists anymore, doesn't really make sense, Celsius makes more sense.
Why does celsius make more sense, its not based on anything even remotely accurately reproducible since even its water freeze/boil basis will almost never actually be accurate since it depends on the current atmospheric pressure that varies both by altitude as well as simply the weather.
Kelvin makes more sense, as its based on absolute 0, but then it has the problem of its unit-widths being basd on celsius
sidraket neither is Farenheit. And? It is a practical guideline that is understood worldwide as it is based on effects observed everyday snywhere you go.
Jakub Świtalski
It most certainly is. The unit width of fahrenheit is exactly one ten thousandth of a volume change of mercury. You do not see the effects of water freezing at 0c and boiling at 100c hardly anywhere since it changes based on atmospheric pressure, and water in nature usually is not pure and so the things in it will modify its freezing/boiling point anyway. Its an entierly absurd thing to base a temperature system around.
So what we have with celsius is arbitrary 0 degrees and arbitrary unit width. With farenheit while 0 is also arbitrary, its unit width is based on an element and can be reproduced anywhere in the entire universe. So thats a step up. While a system based on absolute zero with a sensible unit-width would be even better, we dont have that since kelvin is infected by the celsius nonsense for its unit width.
sidraket If you want 0c could start when atoms stop moving.
sidraket Do you not understand the absurdity of measuring a *random* metal's thermal and calling it more intuitive than using the most abundant substance on the planet which yes, might not give precise and uniformly observed results when done with a boiling tube in the middle of field in Zambia, but can be estimated anywhere you go. Plus only like 0.5% of the human population uses Farenheit because it is so random.
Good video. Informative and entertaining.
0:43 why is Kaliningrad Oblast showed as a part of Poland thats in Russia
0F: Cold --> 100F: Hot
0C: Cold --> 100C: Dead
0K: Dead --> 100K: Dead
basically, yeah.
That's pretty much it, Chief.
You are not dead when it's 100C, for example you get this temperature in a finnish sauna or a russian banja and you not die at all
@@edmiller1721 saunas are different. I don't remember how, but they are vastly different from our understanding of physics.
@@thallan that depands on the humidity.. my parents were in sibiria 2 weeks ago and they did not freeze at -30C, but when i picked they up from the airport in munich they have frozen off the ass. It was +3C \(._. )/ Humidity, wind, friction.. Physics is broadly structured!
Fun Fact: -40C = -40F
Also, +40C = +104F
Also 25C = 77F (just add the 2 and 5 together to get 7, easy to remember).
Qamar Munir nice trick :)
:
Stop learning tricks. Refuse to accept Fahrenheit exists and we will have the Celsius all over the world.
Lol such a disgusting scale
I like the illustrations!
I like this style of video a lot.
I made the Hungarian subtitles. Im so proud of myself. It is so cool
took you long enough
I actually made it much earlier than the comment, it was just good recognising the words I wrote.
Cool! Thank you!
@@tvoy_droog the hungarian people only have is pride , so let him wrelish in it.
Lol
0:41 Kerbal Space Program!
It's Kerbal Space Program music!
wooooooooooooo
Soon as I heard it that's all I could hear. Veri switched to Kerbalese.
This video makes me want to blow up rockets
As a matter of fact, the music is from Incompetech. Check the description of the video for the links, and pay attention to all of Incompetech's music. You will most definitely stumble upon many known tunes. ;)
“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade-which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go f**k yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.”
― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing
What you listed is actually not _quite_ precise. 1 mole of hydrogen is 1.000784 (for monoatomic hydrogen). Water occupies 1ml at 3C, not 0C.
That an excellent video. Thanks
This video had me question my sanity for the last hour and a half, since it made me come to the conclusion that water boils at 256 °F (it boils at 212°F) and i couldn't find where my reasoning was wrong (water boils at 60 degrees Rømer, so 64° in the original Fahrenheit scale, times 4 it should be 256° in the modern one). Apparently the video was wrong at 1:33 : in the Rømer scale body temperature is around 26.4 (21/40 x 36°C + 7.5), not 22.5. If it was then water would boil at 49 degrees, or would freeze at 1.5, so the progression from the Rømer scale to Fahrenheit is not the one decribed in the video, or is at least missing a step.
I'm honestly surprised no one realized this in the almost 4 years this video was out, and i didn't even notice the first time i saw it.
Thank you! I watched this video 4 years ago but just came back to it cause it was still bugging me years later!
You’re awesome
In celsius you don’t have to do so many calcols, it’s simply 100°C
Fahrenheit does not change at regular increments.
I just saw this video for the first time and thought it would be a cool way of remembering the boiling of water but looked it up just to be sure. Upon finding it wasn't checked the comments for an explanation.
I wish there was a better explanation of what happened.
If you stop at the right frame he has 4 eyes 3:19
o monster Illuminati
How horrifying.
Its 3 with a little thing at the end of it.
It's a smear frame
3 eyes
fahrenheit: *exists*
everyone: laugh intensifies
I really liked how you added humour to this video
0:42 in 1701 polish borders were looking different and also this picture is wrong with actual borders of Poland, we don't have Kaliningrad Oblast, it belongs to Russia
Americans ignorants
The video was made by an australian...
Pole can't lie to pole- We all know that kaliningrad shouldn't belong to soviets- bealrus, lithuania, poland, ethiopia- but not russia*. And technically speaking it wasn't "Poland" but it was Polish-Lithuanian republic/commonwalth. Link to maps from period: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Grosser_Nordischer_Krieg_Phase1.png
*IT IS A JOKE- ethiopia have same rigthts to kaliningrad as russia - NONE- EVEN GERMANS Have bigger rights to this part o f the world
NO, no. He's not ours. He's a Canadian. Don't you blame us.
who is american?
I live in the US and in science we use the metric system. In fact we've learned both systems since like 1st grade
So good news for you - you can ditch one ;-)
Hell no.
I don't think that is the case everywhere. Is this a specific state or school that does it?
I live in Florida so possibly
Martinspire It is done everywhere as far as I know, they've done it in both Arizona and Texas.
Fahrenheit is very useful with "Earthly" temperature. Celsius just doesn't make sense to me, but I would totally want a Kelvin measuring system though.
Wdym Celsius doesn't make sense
0 is water freezing/melting
100 is water boiling/condensing
Fahreneit doesn't make any sense for 7,4 billions humans right now, americans are the odd one. Deal with it! :)
I love your videos!
Ok yeah but do you really Wana give up seeing that it's 69 degrees outside
well yeh, of course you would, why use a worse temperature scale just for a joke that only 12 year olds would find funny?
#Murrica!
Go live your boring miserable life
@@cheetobag2355 go back to 2016, or find an insult from this year.
Yes, specifically because this was the worst sentence I've ever read.
I'm American and I would love to adopt the metric system.
TRAITOR!!!
Ha no one is stopping you.
We use it a lot. Nothing stopping you.
Oh come on it encourages you to math
I had to learn both systems in engineering school. Made it a pain in the ass.
Around 1:00, Kerbal Space Program in-game music can be heard in the background. Nice video :)
Very good explanation.
Kelvin isn't 0K
ROFL XD
why did i read that as zero kelvin instead of OK?
Poor Kelvin
Collin Maybe because that’s what it was supposed to be
im calling the police
Did Fahrenheit attend a University? How would he make a measuring instrument if he never *graduated?*
Master of puns
Get out
93
claps slowly
The knowledge of people is not only gained by "graduating". There are so many more ways to learn. For example reading books. Fahrenheit might also have learned from his friend the astronomer.
Great animation!!
I use Celsius when measuring artificial temperatures, such as computers or cooking, but I prefer Fahrenheit for climate temperature as it is more spread out. 30C to 35C has a far greater difference than 30F to 35F.
That's why there are decimals.
@@maxjooher How much is .15 in temp?
@@maxjooher There are less decimals in Fahrenheit.
@@qazqazqazqaz100 whatever, most people in the world are fine with the precision of 1°C , and if they want more precision, 0.5° is enough
@@maxjooher fahrenheit has decimals too
the basic problem with getting people to switch to metric.
"Ok, listen up, we've got a brand new temperature scale that you should start using!"
"Why?"
"Because it's better! calculations between units are easy, and its vastly superior for doing science! plus it's based on logic!"
"That sounds nice. But I'm not a scientist."
"Well you should do it anyway!"
"So I should recondition myself to think about temperature in a new way, breaking off from a system that I understand and nearly everyone I interact with understands, in order to gain no practical benefit whatsoever."
"Yes."
the metric system is fantastic and does make a lot more sense mathematically, but people tend to be too busy not relearning how they measure everything because it's good for science.
I think it would be good, strictly speaking, for the US to change to metric, but the benefits would be...nearly unnoticeable as near as I can tell, as most anyone who would benefit from using the metric system already understands it thoroughly and uses it.
Well Canada changed systems, it wasn't shoved down people throats. It was made slowly and gradually, using both system at first, and slowly taking the other one out while people are getting used to it.
They don't need to change, they just need to know both, like the UK, or Canada has to learn because the US won't use Celsius
I think there should be a strong initiative to learn metric but by no means should people be forced or pressured to outright switch, as that leads to the problems that have been discussed to death. More understanding is better, I think we can all agree on that.
So in essence it took more than 3 generation to shift ? How many generation are we now ?
The thing is with that, you are only talking about the benefits for the USA. The rest of the world hugely gains as well with less being spent on converting measures. (And long-term America will gain as well because the economy will save roughly 30-40 billion us dollars each year)
0:40 and that day he decided to fight crime, as MUSHROOM MAN!!!
Fahrenheit is logically easy to comprehend. It pretty much operates on the scale of 10. Like, how how beautiful is that girl on a scale of 1-10?
10 is absolutely stunning and 100 degrees is absolutely hot.
9 is very gorgeous and 90 degrees is very hot.
8 is quite beautiful and 80 degrees is quite hot, but not very.
7 is good looking and 70 degrees is good weather.
6 is a little below standard and 60 degrees is a little cold.
5 is kinda plain and 50 degrees is kinda cold.
4 is ugly and 40 degrees is cold.
3 is hideous and 30 degrees is freezing.
i like cold and i like winter lot more than summer ..prefer to be freezing cold that very hot, cuz u know u can always put another sweatshirt if its cold but when is hot u cant rip your skin off.. so my point is that your comparisson is pretty incomprehensible for me
@@jivkokostov5737 Sure... I guess you must have skipped the part about rating on a scale of 1-10 or it must just be an American thing. For instance, I rate your comprehension of my comment a 3 out of 10 and your biased interpretation a 4 out of 10.
@@jivkokostov5737 it's not about what you like. it doesn't matter that you like the cold and winter more than summer, that doesn't change the fact that winter is cold or summer is hot. just because you prefer 30 degrees Fahrenheit, doesn't negate the fact that 100 degrees Fahrenheit is hot AF. your comment is nonsense and incomprehensible.
10, 100°C hot
9, 90°C hot
8, 80°C hot
7, 70°C hot
6, 60°C hot
5, 50°C hot
4, 40°C hot
3, 30°C hot
2, 20°C hot
1, 10°C pleasant
0, 0°C pleasant
SI unit of temperature also includes the Kelvin scale, which includes absolute zero -273c.
In this comments section: "I was born with [insert temperature system], therefore, it's the best one, and everyone who doesn't use it is somehow inferior to me!"
And what would that reason be? Because the ability to tell the physical state of water in a more simple manner helped their development? But that doesn't really make sense because the USA is one of the worlds super powers... So you don't seem to have a point.
That's America in a nutshell.
Pedro Pacheco yeah they nailed it collectively.
Except I can give a rational argument as to why Fahrenheit is in fact better for day to day use! I can also give a rational argument as to how Kelvin is superior to Celsius in science thus making Kelvin and Fahrenheit the better specialized temperature scales with Celsius being a jack of all trades master of none scale. That viewpoint can be supported and I have already made 7 multi paragraph comments on this video explaining why and defending my position on the subject debunking assumptions as to me hating SI units. In fact I support all SI units except Celsius which may or may not even be considered an SI unit. Fahrenheit and Fractions keep that and use metric units for everything else! I even argued with Veritasium the creator of the video and made a comeback! Of course since the creator of the video denounced me nobody took the TIME TO EVEN CONSIDER THE SLIGHTEST CHANCE MY ARGUMENT HAD SOME REASONING BEHIND IT!
Blood Bath and Beyond I was born with the imperial system and it sucks.
forget the scale, even typing the word Fahrenheit is hard. i always have to Google it just to make sure.
BattousaiHBr you just need to learn how to spell or use auto correct.
I just type F. Everyone knows what I mean.
BattousaiHBr zzy👟👟
DeadliestNin
All In Alt-Right
It is a little bit more complicated than Fahrenheit was born in Poland. Different map back then. It was Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Fahrenheit parents were Germans. Funny thing, we barely learn about him at school at all. There was that guy with weird temperature scale. Conversion is ... and this is it.
Ayy! Thanks for the video 🙂
Australian Canadian??? you don't sound it
Canadian-Australian then, but I preferred the other order of saying it. Plus chronologically, that's how it went.
Do kelvin
but time is relative
Veritasium I don't know why but I just want an episode with C.R.S.P.R. In it
+Nevad Plays Kelvin is pretty simple though, since 0 Kelvin is the absolute freezing point (aka absolute zero).
Which makes 0 degrees Celcius 273,15 Kelvin, since the absolute zero is at -273,15 degrees Celcius.
Formula: T[°C] = T[K] − 273,15
That 2018 map of Europe to show the travelling path of Fahrenheit in 1701 triggered me harder than it should have.
Which is interesting as the video is from 2016.
But yeah, it would be more interesting if it was a 1701 map.
Way to go
Leaving an episode with a cliffhanger
The story I heard (it could be inaccurate) is that zero was the coldest temp they could make a alcohol water and ice mix, and that 212 was simply the highest mark on the that boiling water got to.
PS Fahrenheit is about the only famous scientist that we have no painting, photograph, or even drawing of. We have no idea what he looked like.
0:41 - showing 18th century Poland in contemporary borders is kind of inaccuracy. I believe it's unintentional.
what? So Fahrenheit was discovered by someone from Poland, yet Poland uses Celsius. GG
RaikouX no, Fahrenheit is surname. Surnames cant be discovered.
And he lived in Gdańsk. At the time in Gdańsk many germans were living. And Fahrenheit family was one of them. Fahrenheit doesnt even soud like Polish surname
Igor Ordecha germany also uses Celsius so still GG
Philipp Huf i know, and it doesnt change anything. Why tf Poland or Germany have to use Fahrenheit? Because he was born here? It doesnt work like that. We choose better scale, not by nationality of its creator.
Philipp Huf i wrote that he was basically german only to make fact the fact
As an American, I think we should use metric except for temperature.
100=frickin 🔥
0=frickin ❄️
1/3 up that scale water freezes
2/3 room temp
It's perfect!
-80° Grados en Farenheit, dónde queda eso? En África?
_-Farenheit es el nombre del físico que inventó esa escala de temperatura_
-Ahhhh, pero te digo, tiene una fiebre que vuela
so you've done the celsius video and now this, are you planning on finishing with a video on kelvin?
I wasn't... but now that you mention it.
:D
Drakan R good idea
don't forget Rankine!
Centigrade
0:44 ok I thought I left ksp running in the background
yes
Me too!
wow, I watched this video a long, long time ago, never realized it was you veritasium, lol
0:42 Poland didn't look like that back in 1701
Finally someone who knows and rememberd the history to mention that mistake.
It is not mentionned in the video, but I was told that a 100°F was the temperature of horse blood, slightly warmer than human
And tastier
Archibald Belanus Are you kidding me? Human blood is waaaay tastier
The story I heard about the Fahrenheit temperature is called degrees because the scale is based on degrees in a half circle. He took three reproducible temperature points that can be done in a lab: an ice/water/salt mix, freezing point of water, and the boiling point of water. He fixed zero to the coldest temperature, then determined the linear scale where the difference between the phase changes in water is 180 degrees. - the number of degrees in a half circle. The difference from freezing (32F) to boiling (212F) is 180. So a phase change in water is 180 degrees, which on a circle points in the opposite directions.
*ignores that Celsius set his scale to decrease as temps rose
Woah, I hear that Kerbal music in the background