I realized something today worthy of a self-administered head smack. Like most red-blooded ‘Mericans, I was raised without the metric system. I think it was because they wanted us to suffer more. Anyway, now and then I take a stab at using metric. The other day I flipped the switch on my digital thermometer so I could start making a connection between degrees Celsius and what it feels like. For example, when I started writing this it was 30°C and felt rather warm. It’s about 86°F. Okay, I’ll use that as a reference point.
Now, about that realization: As a metrically-impaired person I looked at the two scales and thought, “Fahrenheit has 180 increments between freezing and boiling but Celsius has only 100 increments, so Fahrenheit is more precise.”
But then my thermometer changed to 28.7°C. Oh!!! (head smack) Decimals! Duh! Both the C and F scales can use them, so there’s an infinite number of increments. A little pothole of my ignorance has been filled.
I used metric through college and army time. It was OK and no problem. However trying to use both of them in regular American life and swapping back and forth has been a real PITA.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Al...there're some things a man shouldn't admit. 🥸
ReplyDeleteI used to teach my students this to help them with the metric unit.
ReplyDelete30 is hot 20 is nice 0 is ice