• recursivethinking@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    That F is zeroed out on fucking Brine makes it the most absurd thing.

    Like OK there may be an argument for base 12 or base 16 (but not both)… But a mixture of water, ice, and sodium chloride?

    Like OK blame a German I guess , but at least they were smart enough to decide, “Das ist stupid”

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      C is pretty made up too. Why water, and why sea level? Don’t complain about F if you aren’t using K, where zero actually means zero. Anything else is just picking arbitrary points that you like for one reason or another.

      • Instigate@aussie.zone
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        6 hours ago

        Why water

        Because it’s one of the most abundant resources available on earth that is imperative to our understanding of the existence of life and is the commonest solution regularly used by humans in scenarios where temperature is a relevant factor.

        why sea level?

        Because vast swathes of humanity live at or near sea level, where we already arbitrarily nominate the level of atmospheric pressure to be 1 ATM.

        While K has a natural zero-point, the gradation (by your logic) is entirely arbitrary as well because it’s based on C and not some other cosmological constant.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          3 hours ago

          I know why water was chosen. Brine also has characteristics that are useful. My point was that it’s just one (specific version of a) molecule at one specific altitude, and pressure varies, so there is no true “sea level pressure”. It is not a concrete thing where zero means zero.

          Metric I love. C is not metric though. It’s an SI unit, but not metric, as often as those are conflated. It doesn’t have any fundamental advantage over F.