Talk:1643: Degrees

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Revision as of 22:04, 15 February 2016 by Martin (talk | contribs) (Mars Climate Orbiter)
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Rankine is a good compromise. 173.245.56.65 14:11, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

0.173 rad = 10°. Now it could be 10°C (50°F) or 10°F (-12°C).--108.162.228.113 14:14, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

It should probably be noted that since 0.173 radians is equal to around 9.91 degrees, the temperature that Cueball gave is likely in 'radians Celsius', since 9.91 degrees Farenheit would be an unlikely temperature to occur, unless they're somewhere like Canada or northern Russia --162.158.152.59 14:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

It would appear that that's already been noted since I started writing that comment. Ignore me. --162.158.152.59 14:18, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Guys, we moved away from the Réaumur-scale: You can do the same for the Fahrenheit :-). --DaB. (talk) 14:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

And we all moved away from the Rømer scale (what Reumer and Fahrenheit were both based on), 0F is 0Rø, 100C/80Reu is 80Rø). We even moved from the 100C-0C to 0C-100C since Celsius was a (half) crazy Swedish scientist who thought Reumer made sense if it was based on 100 instead of 80, and 100 was the freezing point (everybody ignores the second part of his scale).162.158.114.222 17:07, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Rømer was Danish -- Calling him Sweedish is an insult -- kind if the same insult as calling Cruz Canadian Spongebog (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Then it was great that it was Celsius who was called a crazy Swedish scientist above, (and he was Swedish). Rømer is luckily more known for making the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light and not for his failed temperature scale. (I'm from Denmark and like the light part: He measured the hesitation of light ;-) --Kynde (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Considering how cold New England is today, I'm pretty sure it's Fahrenheit. 108.162.218.71 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Temperature is given in F. Look at which month it is. And how this is a darn cold winter (at least in Canada). 108.162.216.43 14:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

its currently 10F in the Boston area where Randall lives.
For people from the future, see this historical data page for the day the comic was released --108.162.214.59 19:00, 15 February 2016 (UTC)


What's with the "We lost a Mars probe over this" remark? 141.101.104.113 14:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

One of the Mars probes crashed into Mars because one of the NASA contractors[citation needed] was using US Customary units instead of SI units. Blaisepascal (talk) 14:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Is there a reference for this ?? Spongebog (talk) 17:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
It was the Mars Climate Orbiter, it crashed in 1999 because software supplied by Lockheed Martin produced results in US customary units even though the specs called for metrics units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter Martin (talk) 22:04, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
The mars probe remark is in reference to a mistake in switching navigational numbers from American standard to metric (namely in that they didn't) which caused the probe to slam into the surface of mars. If I remember correctly that is.108.162.238.78 14:43, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I used to think that physicists prefer Kelvin, which is of course sort of based on Celsius. Jkrstrt (talk) 15:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

If he used Radians Fahrenheit, then 1 would be very close to earth's historical mean temperature for the period 1951 to 1980. 173.245.55.64 16:19, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

That sounds like it could almost be useful.... What is the temperature on the surface on the sun in Radians ? Spongebog (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
96.08 radians Celsius, or 173.5 radians Fahrenheit. --108.162.214.59 19:00, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

"Easier to spell"? When editing, I had to correct myself from "Celcius" to "Celsius". I never get Fahrenheit wrong! Cosmogoblin (talk) 20:55, 15 February 2016 (UTC)


Can someone explain to me why Fahrenheit's scale is so much more popular across the Atlantic than in his home city country continent? 162.158.102.219 21:37, 15 February 2016 (UTC)