August 6, 2019 • 5 mins
Most of the rest of the world uses the Celsius scale to describe temperature, but the U.S. uses Fahrenheit. Learn the origins and histories of these two scales in today's episode of BrainStuff.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren bog Obam Here. If you're an American and you've
ever had a conversation with someone from another country about
the weather, you've probably been a little confused when he
or she said, the afternoon temperature is a nice twenty
one degrees. To you, that might sound like a chilly
winter day, but to them it's a pleasantly warm springtime temperature.
(00:26):
That's because virtually every other country throughout the world uses
the Celsius temperature scale, part of the metric system, which
denotes the temperature at which water freezes as zero degrees
and the temperature at which it boils as a hundred degrees,
but the US and a few other holdouts the Cayman Islands,
the Bahamas, Belize, and Palau, cling to the fahrenheit scale,
(00:46):
in which water freezes at thirty two degrees and boils
at two hundred and twelve. That means that the twenty
one degrees Celsie's temperature that we previously mentioned is the
equivalent of a balmy seventy degrees fahrenheit. In the United States,
the persistence of fahrenheit is one of those puzzling American idiosyncrasies,
like how the US uses the word soccer to describe
what the rest of the planet calls football. So why
(01:09):
is it that the US uses a different temperature scale
and why doesn't it switch to be consistent with the
rest of the world. There doesn't seem to be a
logical answer, except perhaps inertia. Americans generally seemed to distrust
the metric system. A fifteen pole found that just one
of the public favored converting to metric measures, while sixty
four percent were opposed. It might make more sense if
(01:31):
Fahrenheit was old school and Celsius was some modern upstart,
sort of the new Coke of temperature, but in reality
they were created only about two decades apart. Fahrenheit was
created by its namesake, a German scientist named Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit,
who in the early seventeen hundreds was the first known
person to design alcohol and mercury thermometers that were both
(01:52):
precise and consistent, so that any two of his instruments
would register the same temperature reading in a given place
at a given moment, thanks to his working skill in
managing glass. When Fahrenheit started out, the key thing he
was interested in was coming up with the same temperature
reading all the time, not comparing temperatures of different things
or different times of day. But when he presented a
(02:13):
paper on his system for measuring temperature to the Royal
Society of London in seventeen twenty four, he apparently realized
that he had to come up with a standard temperature
scale as well. But we spoke with Don Hilger, a
research meteorologist at Colorado State University's Cooperative Institute for Research
in the Atmosphere and also president of the U S
Metric Association, a group that advocates conversion to the metric system.
(02:35):
He explained basically, the fahrenheit scale was devised was zero
as the coldest temperature for a mix of ice and
salt water, and the upper end was thought to be
body temperature approximately nine degrees fahrenheit, making a scale that
could be progressively divided by two. This resulted in the
freezing melting temperature being thirty two degrees fahrenheit, not a
very useful number. The boiling temperature for water was then
(02:58):
set at two twelve, again not a very useful number.
The two temperatures are a hundred and eighty degrees apart
again a multiple of two. Nevertheless, the system apparently sounded
pretty good to officials of the British Empire, who adopted
fahrenheit as their standard temperature scale, which is how eventually
became established in the American colonies as well. Meanwhile, though,
(03:19):
in seventeen forty two, a Swedish astronomer named Anders Celsius
came up with a less unwieldy system based on multiples
of ten, in which there was precisely a one hundred
degree difference between the freezing and boiling temperatures of water
at sea level. The neat one hundred degrees symmetry of
the Celsius scale made it a natural fit for the
metric system, which was formally developed by the French in
(03:39):
the late seventeen hundreds, but the English speaking world nevertheless
clung stubbornly to its preference for awkward units such as
the pound and the inch, and fahrenheit went along for
the ride. But finally, in nineteen sixty one, the UK
met Office then called the UK Meteorological Office, switched to
using Celsius to describe temperatures in weather forecasts in order
(04:00):
to be consistent with other European countries. Most of the
rest of the world soon followed suit, with the notable
exception of the US, where the National Weather Service still
publishes temperature data in fahrenheit, even though its own staff
long ago switched to celsius. Hilder explained the NWS as
catering to the public by reporting in degrees fahrenheit, whereas
much of their operations, such as forecast models, use degrees celsius,
(04:24):
and for most automated weather observations the temperatures are recorded
in celsius as well. Should we choose to go metric
and weather reports, the fahrenheit layer that's now added for
the u S public could be removed. We also spoke
via email with j Hendrix, who heads the u S
National Institute of Standards and Technologies Thermodynamic Meteorology Group. He
points out that the fahrenheit scale does have one significant
(04:47):
advantage a quote. It has more degrees over the range
of ambient temperatures that are typical for most people. This
means that there's a finer grain temperature difference between seventy
degrees fahrenheit and seventy one degrees fahrenheit than there is
between twenty one degree celsius and twenty two degree celsius.
Since a human can tell the difference of one degree fahrenheit,
(05:07):
this scale is more precise for the human experience. On
the other hand, though, the advantage goes away if a
fractional temperature in celsius is used. Hendricks explained. For example,
the equivalent celsius temperature for seventy and seventy one fahrenheit
are equivalent to twenty one point one and twenty one
point seven degrees celsius. Today's episode was written by Patrick
(05:32):
Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is
a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
and this and lots of other topics that humans are
sensitive to, visit our home planet how stuff Works dot com,
and for our podcast from my heart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren bog Obam Here. If you're an American and you've
ever had a conversation with someone from another country about
the weather, you've probably been a little confused when he
or she said, the afternoon temperature is a nice twenty
one degrees. To you, that might sound like a chilly
winter day, but to them it's a pleasantly warm springtime temperature.
(00:26):
That's because virtually every other country throughout the world uses
the Celsius temperature scale, part of the metric system, which
denotes the temperature at which water freezes as zero degrees
and the temperature at which it boils as a hundred degrees,
but the US and a few other holdouts the Cayman Islands,
the Bahamas, Belize, and Palau, cling to the fahrenheit scale,
(00:46):
in which water freezes at thirty two degrees and boils
at two hundred and twelve. That means that the twenty
one degrees Celsie's temperature that we previously mentioned is the
equivalent of a balmy seventy degrees fahrenheit. In the United States,
the persistence of fahrenheit is one of those puzzling American idiosyncrasies,
like how the US uses the word soccer to describe
what the rest of the planet calls football. So why
(01:09):
is it that the US uses a different temperature scale
and why doesn't it switch to be consistent with the
rest of the world. There doesn't seem to be a
logical answer, except perhaps inertia. Americans generally seemed to distrust
the metric system. A fifteen pole found that just one
of the public favored converting to metric measures, while sixty
four percent were opposed. It might make more sense if
(01:31):
Fahrenheit was old school and Celsius was some modern upstart,
sort of the new Coke of temperature, but in reality
they were created only about two decades apart. Fahrenheit was
created by its namesake, a German scientist named Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit,
who in the early seventeen hundreds was the first known
person to design alcohol and mercury thermometers that were both
(01:52):
precise and consistent, so that any two of his instruments
would register the same temperature reading in a given place
at a given moment, thanks to his working skill in
managing glass. When Fahrenheit started out, the key thing he
was interested in was coming up with the same temperature
reading all the time, not comparing temperatures of different things
or different times of day. But when he presented a
(02:13):
paper on his system for measuring temperature to the Royal
Society of London in seventeen twenty four, he apparently realized
that he had to come up with a standard temperature
scale as well. But we spoke with Don Hilger, a
research meteorologist at Colorado State University's Cooperative Institute for Research
in the Atmosphere and also president of the U S
Metric Association, a group that advocates conversion to the metric system.
(02:35):
He explained basically, the fahrenheit scale was devised was zero
as the coldest temperature for a mix of ice and
salt water, and the upper end was thought to be
body temperature approximately nine degrees fahrenheit, making a scale that
could be progressively divided by two. This resulted in the
freezing melting temperature being thirty two degrees fahrenheit, not a
very useful number. The boiling temperature for water was then
(02:58):
set at two twelve, again not a very useful number.
The two temperatures are a hundred and eighty degrees apart
again a multiple of two. Nevertheless, the system apparently sounded
pretty good to officials of the British Empire, who adopted
fahrenheit as their standard temperature scale, which is how eventually
became established in the American colonies as well. Meanwhile, though,
(03:19):
in seventeen forty two, a Swedish astronomer named Anders Celsius
came up with a less unwieldy system based on multiples
of ten, in which there was precisely a one hundred
degree difference between the freezing and boiling temperatures of water
at sea level. The neat one hundred degrees symmetry of
the Celsius scale made it a natural fit for the
metric system, which was formally developed by the French in
(03:39):
the late seventeen hundreds, but the English speaking world nevertheless
clung stubbornly to its preference for awkward units such as
the pound and the inch, and fahrenheit went along for
the ride. But finally, in nineteen sixty one, the UK
met Office then called the UK Meteorological Office, switched to
using Celsius to describe temperatures in weather forecasts in order
(04:00):
to be consistent with other European countries. Most of the
rest of the world soon followed suit, with the notable
exception of the US, where the National Weather Service still
publishes temperature data in fahrenheit, even though its own staff
long ago switched to celsius. Hilder explained the NWS as
catering to the public by reporting in degrees fahrenheit, whereas
much of their operations, such as forecast models, use degrees celsius,
(04:24):
and for most automated weather observations the temperatures are recorded
in celsius as well. Should we choose to go metric
and weather reports, the fahrenheit layer that's now added for
the u S public could be removed. We also spoke
via email with j Hendrix, who heads the u S
National Institute of Standards and Technologies Thermodynamic Meteorology Group. He
points out that the fahrenheit scale does have one significant
(04:47):
advantage a quote. It has more degrees over the range
of ambient temperatures that are typical for most people. This
means that there's a finer grain temperature difference between seventy
degrees fahrenheit and seventy one degrees fahrenheit than there is
between twenty one degree celsius and twenty two degree celsius.
Since a human can tell the difference of one degree fahrenheit,
(05:07):
this scale is more precise for the human experience. On
the other hand, though, the advantage goes away if a
fractional temperature in celsius is used. Hendricks explained. For example,
the equivalent celsius temperature for seventy and seventy one fahrenheit
are equivalent to twenty one point one and twenty one
point seven degrees celsius. Today's episode was written by Patrick
(05:32):
Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is
a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
and this and lots of other topics that humans are
sensitive to, visit our home planet how stuff Works dot com,
and for our podcast from my heart Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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