Can an option be added to change temperature to Fahrenheit?
- Thread starter B24 Liberator
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Ever heard of decimal fractions? If you can determine how you'll feel tomorrow with 1F accuracy...
I don't believe you. 18.5 or 19 degrees C isn't a difference worth mentioning, and so is 1F.
It's all convention within the systems, but Celsius (or K) is used in professional settings for a reason.
- 9
So, by your logic, using water as the baseline is better than using actual human experience?
Which is easier to understand
a) 0 is a cold winter day, 100 is a hot summer day (i.e., just above the average human core temp).
or
b) -18 is a cold winter day, 38 is a hot summer day.
My guess is that you are wrong. If someone had 0 experience with either system, something they could relate to (how they feel as opposed to how a volume of water reacts) would be the more logical system.
- 9
- 5
- 2
What definition is "a hot summer day"??!?
Is that 30, 35 or 40 Celsius? Or more than 40?
"Cold winter day" is even more tied to where you are - the same reference might be minus 30 for Siberians, -10 for central Europeans, around 0 for people in tropics.
While water freezes and boils the same, anywhere. You then need a few relatable reference points (body temperature, room temperature, a hot bath, a freezer) and you're set.
Fahrenheit system does not have an intrinsic quality that ties abstract numbers directly to human experience.
Celsius does.
Imperial system is only useful in tabletop wargaming, really.
- 9
- 3
- 2
Or living in any country that relies on the US Meteorological system, regardless of which system is used.
Zero is when water becomes ice.
10 is when your friend from Finland puts a light jacket on.
20 is when your friend from India might think about unzipping their jacket.
30 is when your friend from England complains about not being able to take any more clothes off.
40 is a high fever.
50 is when water is painfully hot to put your hands in.
60 is when water is immediately dangerous to put your hands in.
100 is when water becomes steam.
- 9
Now you are just being obtuse. I included my definition of "hot summer day" in the comparison, "Just above average human core temp"
Well, since Average human core temp is 37 C, just above that would be roughly 40 if we are picking nice round numbers.
Forget to include my definition on this one, but Cold Winter Day (and for that matter Hot Summer Day) would be the point where you start having to take precautions to protect your body against those temps. So for cold, the point you HAVE to either wear extra cold protection, or just not go outside.
BUZZ, wrong. Freezes, yes (for the most part). Boils...nope - varies based on elevation and/or atmospheric pressure. There is a reason 100 C (and 212 F) is defined as the temperature that water boils AT SEA LEVEL.
- 12
- 2
Off the top of my head? Lots of island nations in the Caribbean rely on the US Weather System, even if they use Celsius for everything else.
I feel that once you've been taught only one way as a child, most people are going to vigorously defend that system and find it more intuitive and easier to do calculations with - but that's not a good way of determining whether a system is good. As I said, given equivalent levels of familiarity Imperial is better for situations where you're only using the one unit at one scale.
The thing is, if you only speak, say, Swedish, you're going to feel like Swedish is the most intuitive language because it's the only one you can intuit - even if you learn other languages later, you'll have an easier time speaking Swedish. That doesn't actually mean Swedish is the best language though. That's why the game is in several languages, not just Swedish.
Likewise, the game should have both common unit systems, not just the one used in Sweden.
- 8
- 3
It's amusing to see the Usasian worked up about his unintuitive system based on ... ammonia chloride for some reason? No idea why that's better than a system that reflects the state of the most important chemical substance to life as we know it. Exceptional thinking, for sure.
But, well, it's the internet. A toggle wouldn't take anything away from me. So if it's not difficult, would be a nice QoL thing.
But I do wonder how often anyone actually checks the temperatures in HoI IV. I usually only care to check if it's frozen or deep snow and the icons in-game and the actual map do a good job of that usually. Maybe weather penalties should be harsher.
But, well, it's the internet. A toggle wouldn't take anything away from me. So if it's not difficult, would be a nice QoL thing.
But I do wonder how often anyone actually checks the temperatures in HoI IV. I usually only care to check if it's frozen or deep snow and the icons in-game and the actual map do a good job of that usually. Maybe weather penalties should be harsher.
- 6
- 1
- 1
"The Usaian"? You mean Fahrenheit? He was German, but moved to the Dutch Republic as a teenager and did his work there. First published the scale in 1724.
Both Celsius and Fahrenheit used water. They were developing temperature scales, so one goal was to have scientists in other countries able to replicate the reference points with reasonably obtainable materials. Since in the early 18th century, it wasn't that easy to purify water, Fahrenheit took the opposite route and specified a saturated mixture as the reference. He suggested in his original paper that you might use sea salt if you couldn't get ammonium chloride.
Either way, the salt lowers the freezing point of water, thus driving down the lowest point which was easily reachable, making the thermometer useful over a wider range, as well as the water having an obvious indication when you reach that lowest point. (The salt water freezes.) That lowest reachable point was defined as 0. The freezing point of (hopefully) pure water, higher than salt water, was defined as 30 F. Fahrenheit originally used human body temperature as the other end of the scale, assigning that point 90 F. (He took temperatures with a thermometer under the arm.) Then, just to make thermometers easier to make (everyone had to make their own back then), Fahrenheit put the final twist on the scale to label freezing as 32 and body temperature 96. That way, there were exactly 64 intervals between the two reference points, so you could divide the scale exactly in half repeatedly to get accurate markings for individual degrees. It's easy to bisect a line with compass and straightedge; much harder to divide it into tenths. The lower part of the scale, 32 degrees, was also a power of two. (Creating the actual "ruler" is the point here. It's not like there was another one to copy, because the point of the science was inventing a way to measure it in the first place. Nor was it a world of precision manufacture where you could assume your second thermometer expanded exactly as much as the first one, and so just copied one scale.)
After using Fahrenheit's scale, other scientists doing temperature measurement work reported that water boiled at about 180 F above its freezing point. So, Fahrenheit redefined the endpoints to make freezing salt water 0 and the boiling point exactly 180 F. He liked having a nice composite number that could easily be divided into halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, etc, all without fractions. (Much like the 60 seconds in a minute, 360 degrees in a circle scales still used in time or angular measure.)
Celsius was Swedish, and did his work about twenty years later. He was well aware of Fahrenheit's efforts. He was a fan of 100 as a convenient base rather than 180, so he defined his scale so that 100 was the freezing point and 0 the boiling point. Yes, you read that right; lower temperatures had higher numbers. It only took a couple of years for other scientists to invert that scale so that 0 was freezing and 100 boiling. There were actually a fair number of scientists using 100-degree scales at that point; for a while there, making thermometers was the cool new high-tech trend. "Higher number = hotter" won out over Celsius' original numbering scheme. Celsius had also done some work showing how the boiling point of water varied with atmospheric pressure, so he added the requirement that the reference points be determined at mean barometric pressure at mean sea level, a nice touch for improving the precision of the upper end, if not particularly convenient for his non-coastal fellows.
Both Fahrenheit and Celsius used the same material, water, and for the same reason. It was readily available to other scientists that would be interested in replicating their work, with freezing and boiling points that were within the range of simple and available technology, like "fire".
Both Celsius and Fahrenheit used water. They were developing temperature scales, so one goal was to have scientists in other countries able to replicate the reference points with reasonably obtainable materials. Since in the early 18th century, it wasn't that easy to purify water, Fahrenheit took the opposite route and specified a saturated mixture as the reference. He suggested in his original paper that you might use sea salt if you couldn't get ammonium chloride.
Either way, the salt lowers the freezing point of water, thus driving down the lowest point which was easily reachable, making the thermometer useful over a wider range, as well as the water having an obvious indication when you reach that lowest point. (The salt water freezes.) That lowest reachable point was defined as 0. The freezing point of (hopefully) pure water, higher than salt water, was defined as 30 F. Fahrenheit originally used human body temperature as the other end of the scale, assigning that point 90 F. (He took temperatures with a thermometer under the arm.) Then, just to make thermometers easier to make (everyone had to make their own back then), Fahrenheit put the final twist on the scale to label freezing as 32 and body temperature 96. That way, there were exactly 64 intervals between the two reference points, so you could divide the scale exactly in half repeatedly to get accurate markings for individual degrees. It's easy to bisect a line with compass and straightedge; much harder to divide it into tenths. The lower part of the scale, 32 degrees, was also a power of two. (Creating the actual "ruler" is the point here. It's not like there was another one to copy, because the point of the science was inventing a way to measure it in the first place. Nor was it a world of precision manufacture where you could assume your second thermometer expanded exactly as much as the first one, and so just copied one scale.)
After using Fahrenheit's scale, other scientists doing temperature measurement work reported that water boiled at about 180 F above its freezing point. So, Fahrenheit redefined the endpoints to make freezing salt water 0 and the boiling point exactly 180 F. He liked having a nice composite number that could easily be divided into halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, etc, all without fractions. (Much like the 60 seconds in a minute, 360 degrees in a circle scales still used in time or angular measure.)
Celsius was Swedish, and did his work about twenty years later. He was well aware of Fahrenheit's efforts. He was a fan of 100 as a convenient base rather than 180, so he defined his scale so that 100 was the freezing point and 0 the boiling point. Yes, you read that right; lower temperatures had higher numbers. It only took a couple of years for other scientists to invert that scale so that 0 was freezing and 100 boiling. There were actually a fair number of scientists using 100-degree scales at that point; for a while there, making thermometers was the cool new high-tech trend. "Higher number = hotter" won out over Celsius' original numbering scheme. Celsius had also done some work showing how the boiling point of water varied with atmospheric pressure, so he added the requirement that the reference points be determined at mean barometric pressure at mean sea level, a nice touch for improving the precision of the upper end, if not particularly convenient for his non-coastal fellows.
Both Fahrenheit and Celsius used the same material, water, and for the same reason. It was readily available to other scientists that would be interested in replicating their work, with freezing and boiling points that were within the range of simple and available technology, like "fire".
Last edited:
- 8
- 1
Both systems work just fine. I’ve lived in both.
that said, Fahrenheit is more granular. You get more integers per temperature range. I know both and can use them interchangeably. As a general rule of thumb, anything that is casual or “feels like” is imperial (human height, air/water temp for daily use, driving a car) anything precise and technical is metric (altitude, cooking, science, load limits). There are some exceptions, if you’re in the us, you’re going to have a harder time doing carpentry in metric. And if you’re in the uk some people may use stone for their own weight.
that said, Fahrenheit is more granular. You get more integers per temperature range. I know both and can use them interchangeably. As a general rule of thumb, anything that is casual or “feels like” is imperial (human height, air/water temp for daily use, driving a car) anything precise and technical is metric (altitude, cooking, science, load limits). There are some exceptions, if you’re in the us, you’re going to have a harder time doing carpentry in metric. And if you’re in the uk some people may use stone for their own weight.
- 5
- 1
"Feels like" means nothing to me. Something is either one thing, or another. If I wanted to guess, I would slap my knee and say "Yeah, sure looks darn big."
- 5
- 1
And people wonder why we can't get along and why there is conflict in the world, when forum users get so worked on if you are used to fahrenheit or celsius. Lmao
- 3
- 3
Basically what everyone else said. Celsius makes sense for science and boiling water. I could care less about the boiling point of water, not much about 0 as the freezing point.
Fahrenheit is more granular as stated. 100 is a hot day . 0 is very cold weather. 50 to 68 is spring and fall, and winter in the South. 68 is indoor office temperature. 32 is freezing, 33 to 45 about refridgeration. Sunny and 75 is a country song. 85 is like jump in a pool (pool water temperature maybe). 90 is like go to the beach, find a shade tree.
For weather it just makes more sense. There's 10 degrees for every kind of weather. 10 degree difference in Celsius I guess goes from comfortable to risk of heat stroke.
Figure it's best left to scientists.
- 10
- 1
I am pretty sure if you take a denizen from Austin, Texas and one from Williston, North Dakota at least one of them would disagree, if not both.
Also
Where I live, 0 is freezing, 10 is cold, 20 is warm, 30 is hot, 40 is burning hot, 50 is a downright dangerous for health.
...
By the way, are you arguying that a decimally divided system is better by definition ? Are you absolutely sure you want to go there ?
- 5
- 1
- 1
There only two kinds of countries in the world those that put a man on the moon and those that use Celsius.
But for real I would very much like this feature as I never bothered to remember Celsius after highschool and just go based on the symbol. Actually knowing what the temperature is would be would be nice.
But for real I would very much like this feature as I never bothered to remember Celsius after highschool and just go based on the symbol. Actually knowing what the temperature is would be would be nice.
Last edited:
- 9
- 2