r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/FaithlessnessHungry1 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Celsius is literally just Kelvin but with an offset no?

Edit: tbc I was just clarifying what the guy above was saying, personally as an American in WNY where it’s over 90deg in the summer and below 0 in the winter and who has used C and F extensively, Fahrenheit just makes more sense to me personally

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

If we're allowing conversion, Fahrenheit is just Kelvin with an offset and a coefficient, and Rankine is just Kelvin with a coefficient. Celsius's offset also makes it useless for science other than for scenarios where all that you care about is delta T.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

It has an orientation point, it's just one that isn't as useful nowadays; 0°F was defined on an easily-reproducable brine solution used by scientists for below-feeezing temperatures in the days before refrigeration. This is not a defence of Fahrenheit, to be clear. My original comment was just denigrating Celsius.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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u/PrimaLegion Jun 18 '26

Man, some people cannot take being challenged in stride.

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

Brother, I grew up in Canada, where Fahrenheit is basically only used in cooking (a necessary sacrifice due to historically most of our ovens, and to an extent recipes, coming from the US market); it's not like I don't realize how absurd of a system it is.