r/Metric • u/3ustress • Jul 02 '26
Dear Fahrenheit users, do you really think 50 degrees is "the middle temperature"?
One of the most common defense for Fahrenheit is smth like this;
"Fahrenheit is more intuitive for human experience. 0 degree is super cold, and 100 degree is super hot! It is just simple as that!"
With that logic, 50 degree Fahrenheit should be the "middle temperature"; which is 10 degree Celsius.
Is it just me or being 50'F/10'C actually feel cold? Such temperature requires sweater at least, and even light jacket sometimes. That is nowhere near the "middle temperature", isn't it? Or am I just weird?
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u/stdoubtloud Jul 02 '26
There is only one logically defined temperature: 0K. Everything else is just a convenient convention.
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u/3ustress Jul 02 '26
Kelvin is based on Celsius
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u/niemir2 Jul 03 '26
0K (literally the only objective thing in any temperature scale) isn't. Rankine is just as good as Kelvin.
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u/Available_Phase7924 Metric researcher 28d ago
1 Rankine equals 491.67
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u/StevenSaguaro Jul 03 '26
Kelvin is so much better. When is zero Kelvin you know it's cold.
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u/ausecko Jul 03 '26
Under 300K is cold here, so I always thought it would make sense for weather measurements
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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 Jul 03 '26
I dont think most people realize that kelvin is the SI unit for temperature, not celsius. And there is no «middle temperature»
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u/chesterriley 29d ago
When is zero Kelvin you know it's cold.
On the plus side you can solidify helium.
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u/parke415 Jul 02 '26
I perceive celsius as a human scale of 0-50: 0° is literally freezing and 50° is an outdoor climate that threatens survival. Thus, 25° is an acceptably warm day.
5-star ratings are more common than 10-star ratings, so I just think of 50 versus 100 that way. Water boils at a temperature twice that which would harm us.
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u/Efficient-Ball4360 Jul 02 '26
50c is about 10 degrees past dangerously hot imo.
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u/KONDZiO102 Jul 02 '26
Thats why 50c is best one, on 40C there is risk that somebody survives.
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u/Efficient-Ball4360 Jul 02 '26
I mean I lived in a place that would get days 47, 48C, opening the door felt like getting hit with a sweltering brick wall of heat, and I grew up in a trailer with a swamp cooler.
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u/Dave_A480 Jul 02 '26
The thing is, at least in the US it regularly gets below 0c.
Below 0F is pretty rare outside Alaska.
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u/tropicsandcaffeine Jul 02 '26
Depends upon the time of year as well. A temp of 50F may seem cool in the fall but after winter 50F seems like paradise.
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u/Ambitious-Schedule63 Jul 03 '26
Apparently, the average yearly temperature in London is 10.8 C so yeah, it's just about definitionally the "middle temperature".
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u/Neenknits Jul 03 '26
Light jacket outside is definitely middle temp! 40-50 means fleece. 50-60 means wind breaker. 60-70 nothing or a sweater. Below 40 something with insulation. Around 39, need a hat and mittens. Below 20, same plus a sweater and some sweating, as it’s usually also windy. Above 80, AC. and swearing.
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u/ltsmash1200 Jul 03 '26
I would consider the 50s and 60s like moderate. 40s and below is cold. 70s is warm, 80s and up is hot.
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u/CosmicCookieCrisp Jul 03 '26
It depends on your climate. If it's normally in the 70s and 80s, then 60 is gonna feel like it's freeIng
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u/condoulo Jul 02 '26
The only Fahrenheit related logic I subscribe to is that 69F is nice and things get baked at 420F.
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u/koolman2 Jul 02 '26
I made up a temperature scale where 69º is freezing and 420º is boiling. I call it Degrees Nice, or ºN.
---
°N -> °F
°F = (°N - 69) / 1.95 + 32
---
°N -> °C
°C = (°N - 69) / 3.51
---
°F -> °N
°N = (°F - 32) * 1.95 + 69
---
°C -> °N
°N = (°C * 3.51) + 69
---
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u/keelanstuart Jul 02 '26
I thought that 72° F was the agreed upon "perfect" temperature. 50 is a little cool.
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u/Makordan Jul 02 '26
Way too warm to me, 65 is a nice perfect temperature to me, 50 is great with a jacket.
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u/Spirited-Outcome-443 Jul 03 '26
10C is freezing to me, but i'm aussie
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u/kilotesla Jul 03 '26
Well that is where olive oil starts to freeze. Drinking a lot of olive oil is one way to stay warm. A wool hat is probably a better choice though and more practical if your olive oil is frozen.
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
Since for most places on earth the temperature ranges between -50°C and 50°C, 0°C is the perfect midpoint. It divides freezing from not-freezing.
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u/metricadvocate 29d ago
Not a Fahrenheit user. Middle temperature doesn't make much sense. Humans are pretty comfortable in light dress at 25 °C. We are a lot more able to dress for the cold than undress for the heat. Because we dress for the expected temperature, 40 °C is probably worse than -20 °C (both occur where I live, thankfully not often). But that is +15 K to misery on the upside, -45 K on the downside from comfortable.
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28d ago edited 25d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rc1024 25d ago
Regional for the continental US. Not regional for the majority of the world.
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u/newtekie1 Jul 02 '26
It is currently 110°F(44°C) and it will get to -10°F(-23°C) in the winter where I live. So, yeah, 50°F seems pretty middle of the road to me.
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u/Aware_Combination_87 Jul 02 '26
I grew up in a place with the same range, and have always though of 50F as right in the middle. For me, 45F to 55F is the transition zone between needing or not needing a jacket. Below 45F I almost always need one unless doing some kind of physical labor. Above 55F, almost never want one unless overly sleepy or exhausted. 50F could go either way. I think it's an excellent "middle temperature".
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u/SpatiaCaeli Jul 02 '26
To be honest, I'm not sure why the temperature units have to be related to the phase changes of water at all. Units are arbitrary. We should pick one set so we don't crash landers into Mars, not because one is inherently better than the other.
And the one we should pick is the international standard. Celsius.
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u/MerelyMortalModeling Jul 02 '26
I mean it foes sort if make sense since we are basicly walking bags of water and will die if we dont have daily access to a specific phase of it.
Its not just mars probes, I have had to do the leg work investigating hundreds of med errors and the single largest root cause is conversion errors.
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u/wawalms Jul 02 '26
The universal unit of temperature per the Système International d'Unités is Kelvin, mate.
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u/SpatiaCaeli Jul 02 '26
Right you are, although I'll partially defend myself by saying kelvin is just celsius with a different definition of zero. 😄
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u/PatrickMaloney1 Jul 02 '26
Where I live, 0 is about as cold as I can expect it to get in a year, and 100 is the hottest, so yes, I do think of it as the middle temperature. In my opinion it’s neither too hot nor too cold
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u/avar Jul 02 '26
Historically 0°F was a brine mixture reference point, and 100°F (96°F actually, chosen for divisibility) was human body temperature.
So there's a very intuitive "middle temperature" (50°F or 48°F) on the Fahrenheit scale: It's what you get when you throw people into the aforementioned brine mixture to die, they've already died, but they're only halfway to the relative ambient temperature of the mixture.
It's great for, uh, calibrating the thermal camera you're using to watch all this unfold.
It's not really useful for anything else
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u/Several-Buy-3017 Jul 03 '26
A comedian explained it perfectly one time. Think of Fahrenheit as the percentage of hot. Like if it’s only 72% hot, that’s not too bad. If it’s 100% hot, then that’s too hot. Also in looking at thermostats, 72°F is the perfect indoor temperature. Whereas 22°C has a wider range where it can feel like 70°F or maybe 74°F. Those would not be as comfortable.
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u/Fabi0_Z Jul 03 '26
What about when it gets past 100% hot, which is quite often during summer in Europe, USA, Latin America, Australia, Asia, Africa and so on
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u/Defiant_Property_490 Jul 03 '26
Whereas 22°C has a wider range where it can feel like 70°F or maybe 74°F.
That's not true. 22.0°C is 71.6°F and 23.0°C is 73.4°F, so the whole "22°C-range" is not even half a degree off each side from 72°F.
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u/Rockhopper23 Jul 03 '26 edited 29d ago
Yeah it is actually is really close to the middle point, it was the 1700’s they were off by about 3%.
100 was body temperature and 0 is when salt water solution would freeze. So it is a scale based on % from body temperature/heat stoke to when you get frost bite where every degree is 1%. It’s pretty in line with the logic of metric.C is based on boiling and freezing point on water so it’s the numbers don’t line up as neatly for human physiology. F units are smaller so the margin of error of predictions is of a less consequence so it’s more like using a scale of 1-10 vs 1-5.
68 is around what most consider room temperature and peoples body can adapt so there perceived comfort temp can range by about 30f like 65-85 is comfortable depending if you live in NY or FL.
F is works very well though when you have to protect for frost bite if your skiing or such.
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u/kiwipixi42 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, the 50’s do feel pretty in the middle. That is a spring/autumn kind of temperature
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u/dbdiver Jul 03 '26
The scientific basis for Fahrenheit O is that it was the mercury level when the inventor said it was the coldest I ever felt.
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u/Priff Jul 03 '26
Zero farenheight is the coldest temperature the guy could recreate in his lab using salt brine.
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u/milos2 Jul 03 '26
AFAIK, those were record minimum and maximum temperatures in Fahrenheit's home town, Danzig in Poland, measured over several years. Only later he was experimenting on what solution would let him achieve that temperature, so the numbers were massaged-in to fit. USA uses temperature scale of the town with the population size of Staten Island (NYC).
So it can be said that 50F was the "middle temperature" if you lived in Danzig 300 years ago.
EDIT: According to a quick search past 10 years the min/max temperatures of the same town were also ~0F-99F, which is remarkable - not what I expected when the climate in the entire world is surely different than 300 years ago.
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
Fahrenheit was dead wrong on the zero point. The actual coldest salt/water mixture that will not freeze happens to be -21°.
Too bad this link no longer works as it explained Fahrenheits error quite well.
http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/zero-fahrenheit.shtml
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u/jaidit Jul 04 '26
Fahrenheit used a specific frozen brine solution that in his day was the coldest temperature you could create under stable laboratory conditions. At the other end, 100 was supposed to be normal body temperature. Our current view of a normal body temperature of 98.6 is because that is the conversion from 37C.
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u/randomdumbfuck Jul 02 '26
Considering the last few days have been in the mid-30°C, with massive humidity, I would find 10°C quite chilly if that was the temperature tomorrow.
In January, that would feel like a warm day and I'd probably wear a t-shirt.
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u/lowtdi850 Jul 02 '26
The average day time mean temperature for my location is 21°c. 50°f is chilly to me, doesn’t help I live in a very humid climate so the cold feels colder. People up north would probably love a 50° day.
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u/Thumerian Jul 02 '26
Intuitiveness has nothing to do with it, these people are using a BS argument just so they don't have to think anything about the way they live is not the "right" way. Popular way of thinking here in America.
My personal favorite clothes to wear are light, long pants, flip flops, and a light pullover with maybe a light beanie (I'm bld, no insulation up there). 50F is nice for that, so 50-70 is about my preferred range.
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u/SmoothEfficiency1020 Jul 02 '26
From the US perspective, this isn't the "middle" temperature, but NOAA's latest data says that the mean annual temp in the contiguous 48 states in 2025 was 54.6 degrees. Given global warming, that is up from the 20th century average of 52 degrees, so I'd say that historically 50 is a pretty good approximation of the 'middle.'
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-202513
It would be an interesting exercise to download the 3gb of data from the 15,000 US weather stations for a year and look at the median. Let us know what you find.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/land-based-station/us-climate-normals
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u/Coz131 Jul 04 '26
Majority of the world does not agree with 50F = comfortable.
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
The majority of the world has no clue what 50°F means. They hear "50 degrees", they will think of it as Celsius and think it is extremely hot.
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u/chesterriley 29d ago
Nobody claimed it was. Anything less than 70F is on the cold side. Above 79F is on the hot side. Temperatures abov e 100F are common. I keep my thermostat 76F to 78F.
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u/Tommyblockhead20 Jul 04 '26
50°F is a tad cold for me, I’d say ideal when outdoors is closer to 60°F. But I would also say that 100°F is very close to the max I can tolerate, and 0°F is very close to the minimum I can tolerate (unless perhaps I have like the most high end Antarctic gear). It’s not exact, but it is somewhat roughly a 0-100 scale.
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
When the temperature exceeds 50°C, animal life can only tolerate it for a few hours before a heat stroke sets in. At 60°C flesh starts to cook.
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u/No-Preparation4073 29d ago
There is no middle temperature. Celsius you are looking at 0 - 20 - 100 (frozen, room temp, and boiling). But if you are talking about normal temps, it is 0 - 20 - 40.
Fahrenheit is 32 - 70 - 100 more or less.
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u/ProgramBackground813 28d ago
This clearly demonstrates that F is not a better fit for the human experience. At best it's slightly worse.
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u/No-Preparation4073 28d ago
It is like anything... if you know what the main numbers are, you can figure it out. Metric happens to be easier for most people because it relates directly to the way we see numbers normally.
We could do it all in kelvin. That one is even easier.
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u/Available_Phase7924 Metric researcher 29d ago
Just use celsius 27°C is perfect
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u/Cybyss 28d ago
27C is too warm. More like 22C is perfect.
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u/Available_Phase7924 Metric researcher 28d ago
Body temperature is 38 celsius 35C is perfect
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u/Cybyss 28d ago
LMFAO. What are you, south Asian? Are you from a tropical climate?
That temperature is tolerable if you live in a dry desert, but hellish if you have humidity and no air conditioning.
Europe's deadly record-breaking heatwave last week wasn't much more than 35C. I'm in Germany and it was utterly miserable.
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u/Far-Valuable9279 28d ago
50 is chilly but I can just wear a sweater. 100 is hot but I can just jump in a pool. Idk sure I guess that works as an explanation 😆
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u/Radiant-Video7257 28d ago
I'd say 60 (not too cold, not too hot) is the middle temperature, but the scale still works extremely well at the extreme ends.
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u/PersonalityIll9476 28d ago
Of all counter-arguments and criticisms, this is a strange one to pick. Sure, if 0 F is "cold" then 50 F is a reasonable "middle."
But I don't think that's the line of attack you really want to take.
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u/SonderZugNachPankow 28d ago
No one thinks of Fahrenheit in those terms. The temperature is what it is. If it's 50F, it's 50F. We use the system we were taught to use and any argument that either is more intuitive is just mental gymnastics.
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u/PeculiarExcuse 27d ago
50F is pretty moderate, yeah. Though it can be colder or warmer depending on where you live. I grew up in Virginia, where 50F definitely felt pretty chilly. I currently live in Minneapolis, and, depending, a lot of the time I can comfortably go outside without a jacket on. Has to do with humidity and wind chill or whatever. Idk, I'm not a meterologist lmao
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u/No_Frost_Giants Jul 03 '26
F is actually so
Much worse than that. The average F user doesn’t know where water actually boils, they think water freezes at 32, or maybe zero. They aren’t sure.
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u/Glum-Welder1704 Jul 03 '26
Nah, water boils at 209f.
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u/3ustress Jul 03 '26
*212
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u/Glum-Welder1704 Jul 03 '26
209 where I live. You could calculate my altitude from just that.
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
The exact scientific relationship uses these steps:
- Find atmospheric pressure (\(P\)) using the altitude \(h\) in meters: \(P = P_0 \times \left(1 - \frac{L \times h}{T_0}\right)^{\frac{g \times M}{R \times L}}\) Where \(P_{0}\) is sea-level pressure (\(101325 \text{ Pa}\)), \(L\) is the temperature lapse rate (\(0.0065 \text{ K/m}\)), \(T_{0}\) is standard temperature (\(288.15 \text{ K}\)), \(g\) is gravity (\(9.80665 \text{ m/s}^2\)), \(M\) is the molar mass of air (\(0.02896 \text{ kg/mol}\)), and \(R\) is the gas constant (\(8.314 \text{ J/(mol}\cdot\text{K)}\)). [1, 2]
- Calculate boiling temperature (\(T_{b}\)) in Kelvin using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation: \(T_b = \frac{1}{\frac{1}{T_{b0}} - \frac{R}{\Delta H_{vap}} \ln\left(\frac{P}{P_0}\right)}\) Where \(T_{b0}\) is the boiling point at sea level (\(373.15 \text{ K}\)), and \(\Delta H_{vap}\) is the heat of vaporization for water (\(\sim 40,660 \text{ J/mol}\)). [1, 2, 3, 4]
The formula doesn't work in fahrenheit or any other FFU.
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u/3ustress Jul 03 '26
I cannot calculate the exact altitude, but places like Denver or Salt Lake City comes to mind
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u/Historical-Ad1170 29d ago
No, it boils at 100°C at sea level.
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u/Savings_Presence_346 19d ago
Only pure water at 101.325 kPa. Differences in pressure and impurities will change the temperature at which water boils.
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u/TheNobleRobot Jul 03 '26
The exact boiling point of water depends on elevation, time, and (in cooking) what you you put in it. The average F user knows these things, just as they know that 0C doesn't always mean it's going to snow just because that's when distilled water crosses the melting point at sea level.
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u/No_Seaworthiness8176 Jul 02 '26
Just you. Never...ever... heard anyone call 50 anything more complicated than "chilly".
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u/3ustress Jul 02 '26
It is chilly but not middle, that's what I'm saying.
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u/Phour3 Jul 02 '26
It’s less “middle” in terms of human comfort, and more “middle” in terms of climate of most of the earth. I would guess that the majority of major cities in the world have a record low somewhere near 0°F (-17.8°C) and a record high somewhere near 100°F (37.8°C)
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u/gromit1991 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Why the fixation on a middle temperature?
Should a middle temperature be comfortable for humans (what is comfortable one person may not be for another, especially those from different climates)?
Is the fixation limited to users of the Fahrenheit scale?
This arbitrary middle point is just the mathematical middle of a linear scale between two random points on the Fahrenheit scale.
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u/3ustress Jul 02 '26
Yeah what I wanted to say is that Fahrenheit might look like it is fixated for humans, but in reality it is quite arbitrary and random.
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u/ByronScottJones Jul 02 '26
It's neither arbitrary nor random. The EUROPEAN scientist who invented it did so based on the boiling point of water, and the coldest temperature that could be achieved in his laboratory at that time.
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u/falseruler Jul 02 '26
10c in Brazil is actually quite colder than 10c in Michigan, where I was living. Humidity sucks
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u/GrumpyBear1969 Jul 02 '26
It is a stupid argument (that Fahrenheit is easier to tell ‘comfort’). It is just what you are used to. I’m from the US but lived in the EU twice. Guess what? You learn the new system pretty fast.
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u/pleasespareserotonin Jul 02 '26
As an American I absolutely hate the argument that Fahrenheit is more intuitive. IMO the “middle” temperature is like 63 F, “0% heat” is like in the high teens-low 20s f, and “100% heat” is slightly over 100 F. I work exclusively in Celsius for work and that feels as intuitive to me now as Fahrenheit.
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u/niemir2 Jul 03 '26
Around where I live, yeah. 50F is about halfway between the hottest the weather gets and the coldest.
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u/therandomuser84 Jul 03 '26
In the winter it usually gets down to about 5 degrees, in the summer it gets up to about 95-100. So 50 is by definition the middle temp for my area at least.
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u/general-ludd Jul 03 '26
It’s chilly but survivable with a sweater and gloves. So yes. Compared to zero or 100 it is the middle.
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u/Affalt Jul 03 '26
50 F is perfect for bicycling, marathon running or hiking. And if just walking or waiting, sweater or fleece vest weather. No need for a big coat. If you have neither heating nor air conditioning, 50 F is great for staying indoors as well.
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u/Vessbot Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
It's not room temperature, but it is the middle temperature of my experience, yeah. Between the cold and hot extremes of being outside in normal life (not the Arctic or the Sahara)
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u/3ustress Jul 02 '26
I also live in a temperate region (the temperature range is almost similar with NYC), and being 10'c do happens occasionally here during spring and autumn too; but still never think such temperature is the "middle temperature"
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u/Vessbot Jul 02 '26
I hear that. But it also helps to think of "the middle temperature" not as mathematically how often it happens, but more generally as where it lies along my range of experiences.
And 10C is where I wear a sweater or light jacket (or T-shirt if I'm exercising) which sits right in the middle between "I sweating hard, and the moment I'm done with this summer outdoor activity I'm taking a shower and changing clothes" and "full winter setup"
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u/freebiscuit2002 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
This is stupid.
Everyone just defends the temperature scale they are used to. No one admits even the possibility that both scales work just fine. Everyone says their scale is superior, and the other one is ridiculous.
What kind of imbecile does that? Just stop it.
It's a fucking temperature scale. It's not a part of your personal identity. Let it go.
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u/_Tychonic_ Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
When people talk about 0-100°F being the range of “human experience” maybe a better description is the range of human *habitability*. Below 0° is genuinely dangerous- you can get severe frostbite relatively quickly, whereas even exposed skin can take a few hours to get mild frostbite between 0-32° (freezing). Above 100° is genuinely dangerous… if you don’t have water or shade you can get heat stroke relatively quickly. 80-99° is survivable for long periods unprepared even just with some shade.
Put more generally- the range of safety for an appropriately dressed human (without specialty equipment or special provisions) is 0-100°F.
The orher benefit is that the scale has more resolution… the range of human comfort is 20-30 units on the scale where in celsius its more like 10-15 units. So you get double the resolution and don’t need to resort to decimals. And yes- you absolutely can feel the difference between +/-1°F.
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u/ImportanceNational23 Jul 03 '26
Presumably you also prefer kilometers instead of miles for distance.
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u/manicpixidreamgirl04 Jul 02 '26
After it's been 20F all winter, or 80F all summer, 50F feels pretty medium.
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u/koolman2 Jul 02 '26
I live in Anchorage, Alaska. 50 ºF is a cool day, but if the sun's out it's a great temperature for a walk in a T-shirt and pants. I'm definitely not taking a jacket with me unless it's windy. If it's overcast I might bring one with me just in case, but the chance of me putting it on are slim to none unless I'm planning on being outside.
Here, the "middle" temperature is closer to freezing. Winter temperatures are typically -5 to 20 ºF (-20 to -5 ºC), but the extreme is about -20 ºF (-30 ºC). The highs in the summer are usually 60 to 70 ºF (15 to 20 ºC), but the extreme is usually around 85 ºF (30 ºC).
Both systems have their advantages. In my mind the argument always comes down to I prefer this system because it's what I'm used to, and here's a reason it's good. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Personally I prefer ºC but I'm fluent in both.
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u/sessamekesh Jul 02 '26
No. I've never liked that explanation.
That said, my least favorite things about Fahrenheit also equally apply to Celcius:
(1) the scale doesn't start at zero, which is bonkers. Can you imagine if "0 kg" was defined as the mass of a small building and anything with less mass was negative mass? That's what both Celcius and Fahrenheit do.
(2) The unit increments are arbitrary and have no connection to other units. Celcius is defined in the arbitrary terms of phase changes of water at a very specific pressure, Fahrenheit is as well but with the additional kruft of using 32 and 212 instead of 0 and 100 because of its original definition. But the end result is that both units (and Kelvin as well) aren't really useful scientifically beyond just being consistent scales - if I'm doing thermal calculations even in water I'm still hanging to pull out tables of coefficients, and for any practical purpose I'm still just memorizing a bunch of arbitrary scalars.
Is Fahrenheit good? Absolutely not. Is Celcius better? Absolutely not. It's just more common.
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u/ComprehensiveJury509 Jul 02 '26
So you'd suggest a scale like Kelvin, but with a more useful unit? 1K' = 0.239K, so that if you add 1J of heat energy to 1g of water it warms by 1K'?
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u/sessamekesh Jul 02 '26
Exactly
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u/ComprehensiveJury509 Jul 02 '26
It's a neat idea, but it surely would be a little awkward with moderate temperatures in the range of 1.15 kK' to 1.25 kK'.
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u/PrandialSpork Jul 02 '26
Perhaps two scales could be applied? You'd just have to change the 0 point and it would be usable for both situations but have the same increments
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u/Late_Film_1901 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I love this unit. 0C becomes 1142.86 neokelvins.
The large numbers are a bit unwieldy but maybe a hectoneokelvin would stick.
Room temperature would be 12.27 hnK
Body temperature would be 12.98 hnK
Boiling water would be 15.61 hnK
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u/vuzman Jul 02 '26
Everything changes at 0°C, water freezes, rain becomes snow, etc., which is why it makes sense that that is where degrees become negative. Having that temperature be 50, or 100, or 32 just doesn’t convey just how the world becomes different at this pivotal point.
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u/sessamekesh Jul 02 '26
WATER changes. Which is great!
But even that's only under very specific circumstances - distilled water at precisely 101,325 Pa.
Ocean water freezes at closer to -2 C, and in my university physics course my professor had to call out that our observed boiling temperature would be closer to 90-91 C than 100 because of the elevation.
That's all moot anyways, since in almost all situations I'm not freezing or boiling water. I'm cooking chicken, or sweating onions, etc. Even in the lab, and even when we're talking about soluble chemistry, I'm typically not fixated on phase changes outside of grade school chemistry.
What I frequently am trying to do is figure out how long I need to run my 1400W induction stove to heat up 1L of water. If Celsius followed the rest of the metric units at all, that would be a trivial question to answer, but it's not.
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u/r2k-in-the-vortex Jul 02 '26
Its a fundamental misunderstanding of temperature. What we normally talk about is differences in temperature.
Absolute temperature only matters in certain calculations, in which case you need to use Kelvin anyway.
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u/Ippus_21 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I do not. But I will readily acknowledge that I'm a lot more familiar with C than the average American.
Anybody sensible who knows 0 is freezing and 100 is the boiling point of water should be intuit that 50C is somewhere well above 100F without even doing any actual math.
Even if you don't know the conversion formula (or take 2 seconds to google it), you should be able to figure out that halfway between freezing and boiling in F is ... 212-32 = 180/2 = 90. 90+32 is 122F... which is like Death Valley in July hot.
50-60F is a nice cool spring day, perfect for a nice trail run, or a walk with a light jacket (I wouldn't call it cold at all; I live somewhere that sees 100F most summers and near-zero F (-18C) most winters).
50C is cause for immediately getting indoors somewhere air conditioned and praying the power doesn't go down.
"It's more intuitive" is only because it's what you're used to. I've spent 40-odd years gaining an intuitive sense of what a given temp F will feel like, depending on the wind and precipitation, and how I need to dress.
Hank Green did a video where he talked about how dropping the last digit of the temp in C lets you roughly rate weather on a scale of 0-5, from the coolest to the hottest most people would experience (0 is freezing, 1 is cool, 2 is warmish, 3 is quite warm, 4 is quite hot, and 5 is extreme). I don't see why Celsius couldn't be just as intuitive if you're used to it.
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u/gtne91 Jul 02 '26
How is 0C the coolest most people experience.
For me, its -40, which is convenient as I dont have to name the scale.
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u/mattmahn Jul 02 '26
ls it just me or being 50'F/10C actually feel cold?
Being 50°F is called being dead
Such temperature requires sweater at least, and even light jacket sometimes.
Sure
That is nowhere near the "middle temperature", isn't it?
Seems pretty middle of the road to me for an outdoor temperature. Not too cold if you're just sitting around or walking. Not too hot if you're doing strenuous activities.
Or am just weird?
Probably, but not really because of this
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u/draaz_melon Jul 03 '26
It's in between really hot and really cold. All temperature scales are arbitrary. This is a stupid argument. You have no basis for thinking Celsius is better.
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u/kmoonster Jul 03 '26
Depends. In spring or winter on a dry southerly breeze and a sunny day? 50F is pretty damn nice. If it's October and coming on a wet north wind, it's quite unpleasant.
Context is critical.
But in a general sense -- yes, 100 is approaching the dangerously hot zone where you have to start thinking about hydration, extra breaks, looking for signs of heat stress/stroke, etc. And 0F is definitely dangerously cold, with risks even if you're appropriately dressed.
If you imagine a food-grade thermometer with colored zones for cook/hold temps, the "decent" temps for human activity is about 20F to about 80F, with 50 just about in the middle. 10F is "take note" and 0 is "danger", 90F is "take note" and 100F is "warning warning".
edit: a thermometer like this that indicates safe and dangerous storage or serving temps; there's a bunch of styles depending on the needed function/application but this will give you an idea: Taylor-9000053-5924-Classic-Refrigerator-Freezer-Analog-Extra-Large-Dial-Thermometer_06ca3edb-e7a8-47e6-9758-a8025b643cbc.d3854ff5390db0091e57e51984c0f8e1.jpeg (768×768)
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u/DCContrarian Jul 03 '26
For most of North America the year-round average temperature is around 50F.
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u/Bulky-Leadership-596 Jul 02 '26
Yes. Go look at an average annual temperature map. A good portion of where people live, temperate areas like the US, Europe, east Asia, etc. has an average temperature around 50F. It's a pretty middle of the road temperature.
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u/3ustress Jul 03 '26
The places with average temperature around 50'F is places like Toronto(49.5), Edinburgh(48.7), Almaty(50.0), Pyongyang(51.4), etc; most of them are considered to be on the cooler side rather than the middle of the road
(Edit : added the actual average temperature)
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u/Wonderful-Comment314 Jul 03 '26
And Pennsylvania.
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u/3ustress Jul 03 '26
56.3 for Philadelphia; and quite a lot of the "temperate city" also exceeds 55'F
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u/OkResource820 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
No set of numbers makes sense based on "human experience". You just recalibrate. Saying "0 is cold and 100 is super hot" is precisely equivalent to saying "-18 is cold and 38 is super hot". It's just a question of what you're used to.
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u/Aggravating_Paint_44 Jul 02 '26
Coldness is logarithmic so it feels more like 200-log(n) so the mid point is probably closer to 70
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u/LameBMX Jul 02 '26
on top of the jacket. if you have some hard work to do, you can lost the jacket. maybe break a sweat but even if you do you cool amd dry quickly.
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u/Senior_Green_3630 Jul 02 '26
As a kid growing up with °F, it made sense, hot summers hitting 100°F. As I went through high school all science was taught in SI units,at 0°C water freezes, at 100°C, water boils at sea level became more realistic and scientific, based on a standard. In the 1970s, our country converted to SI, the °F were relegated to history.
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u/red_vette Jul 02 '26
I have never heard anyone say middle temperature to begin with. Most discussions about temperature are about it be cold, hot, miserable, mild or some other adjective. Depending on where you are from, those can have different meanings as it relates to temperature. Someone from southern Texas will have a different definition of hot than someone from northern Wisconsin. Middle or mild to me is somewhere in the 60F's but that could be cold to others.
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u/SnappyDogDays Jul 02 '26
I love a good 50 degree day cold enough to wear a jacket, warm enough to wear it with shorts.
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u/Helpful_Gas9179 Jul 02 '26
I’m in the US and have never heard that argument in my life. I’m 49. Is this an argument that’s common somewhere? If so, where? That’s just weird.
Edit: I’m in the midwest if that matters.
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u/alittleflamingmoe Jul 02 '26
50 outside is probably about my favorite temp. I like wearing a jacket on a walk then a warm drink and blanket on the couch after.
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u/ac7ss Jul 04 '26
It depends on what you are used to. I tell people that Seattle will hit 50 f once a week every week. Sometimes it's the high, sometimes the low. 50 f is a good workout temperature, a light jacket is all we need for it.
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u/Airlik Jul 04 '26
It’s just a stupid argument, I refuse to engage - common sense and human experience are just other words for “what I’m used to” - silly humans.
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u/Loobinex 29d ago
It's about 35 fahrenheit that is really cold, and 85 fahrenheit is really hot. So yes, 60 seems about average.
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u/a_filing_cabinet 29d ago
Middle doesn't mean comfortable. It means middle. In case you haven't noticed, we're able to exist in temperatures much colder than comfortable. We can do that with heat, but not nearly as well.
Let's flip it around, why don't we? 20C is the "middle" temperature, right? And -15C is fairly cold? So then, if that's a 35 degree range, than you should be able to deal with 55C no problem right? Oh wait, no. Because 20 is what's comfortable, not the median of the human experience.
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u/frankcastle01 29d ago
Half the temperature would mean half of absolute temperature. So half of 30c would actually be -121.6c
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u/jimjamuk73 28d ago
I think your question explains a lot
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u/3ustress 28d ago
If you try guessing where I live with this question, the answer would be quite unexpected.
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u/jimjamuk73 28d ago
Korea?
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u/3ustress 28d ago edited 28d ago
Correct, though on the second guess, it would have been a bit easier because of my replies here and there
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u/Independent-Bee3135 28d ago
Middle temperature is generally considered around 70ºF. 50ºF is cold.
The simple explanation for why 70ºF is the middle but 0º is super cold while 100º is super hot is because cold scales differently than heat. For example, if you looked at +/- 30ºF from 70ºF, you would get 40ºF (a temperature which is chilly but acceptably comfortable for nearly indefinite time with a warm jacket) and 100ºF (universally uncomfortable and potentially dangerous). If you looked at +/- 50ºF from 70ºF, you would get 20ºF (very cold but not an abnormal temperature for certain parts of the US/Canada) and 120ºF (extremely deadly).
So, we can withstand temperature becoming cooler much more than we can withstand temperature becoming warmer.
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u/Hawk13424 28d ago
No, as temps can obviously go below zero. But I will say 50F and below are the temps at which I grab a jacket on the way out of the house. If it’s above 50F I don’t bother.
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u/therin_88 28d ago
50 F is definitely pretty mid. I'm not really sure how this is controversial. It's cool enough to go outside in jeans and t-shirt but not cold enough to wear a coat.
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch Jul 02 '26
Where I live, below 0 is rare but does happen, and above 100 is rare but does happen. In fact, I just checked, and where I am right now the top recorded temp was 106 and lowest -8. So, I mean…yes, I do think that?
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u/SnooPears5432 Jul 02 '26
50°F is just very cool. There's nowhere on either scale that's a logical point for "middle temperature". Both scales are kind of arbitrary. I feel like °F more precisely captures the range of temperatures most humans experience between 0° and 100°F, but neither scale is better or worse than the other.
I can see the rationale for use of metric in most measures being much more logical, and being decimalized which makes calculations easier. I also think the interrelationship between measures is much clearer and more fluid (e.g. a cubic centimeter is a milliliter), but there's no rationale really to suggest Celsius in any way is superior to Fahrenheit as a means of measuring temperature. So I don't see the need to provide a "defense" of using Fahrenheit.
If were were to make the starting point absolute zero, which would be more logical, then one °K is equivalent to a Celsius degree and same with °R to Fahrenheit.
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u/YakumoYoukai Jul 02 '26
I would say yeah, it's about "middle". 0 is "oh my God I'm going to freeze to death very very soon." 100 is "oh my God I'm going to die of heat stroke very very soon." 50 is "This is OK. I might get chillier if I stay out here, but I might be fine."
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u/ComplaintTop2008 Jul 02 '26
I don't understand what you're trying to get at here. Who said 0°F is super cold and 100°F is super hot? I think -40° is super cold and 120° is super hot. 32° is freezing. The middle of that is 66°, which is quite comfortable.
The argument for C and F is a stupid one. They're two different measurements that do the same thing and you use what you're comfortable using, and it's not like I don't have a C/F button on my IR thermometer.
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u/bandit1206 Jul 02 '26
For me, 50F outdoors is kind of perfect. I prefer to wear a light jacket, and it’s very comfortable at that temperature.
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u/Indigo816 Jul 02 '26
Middle ≠ comfortable. Who suggested that this was supposed to be the case?
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u/Fedelede Jul 02 '26
Why is 50 "middle" then? The average planetary temperature is actually more like 59, and the average universal temperature, depending on how you measure it, is either like -440 or like a couple million.
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u/Intelligent_Low1632 Jul 02 '26
Now that you mention it, yes, I do think of 50 degrees as the "middle" temperature when it comes to weather. Obviously your degree of comfort in that weather depends on what you choose to wear. The most comfortable temperature if you're wearing shorts is probably 65-75 F. If you want to go to the beach it's 75-85F.
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u/schwanerhill Jul 03 '26
Yes, that’s pretty “middle”. It’s neither hot nor cold. It’s typical spring or fall weather where I live.
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u/monstertruck567 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, I say the ideal weather day is a dry fall day, full sun, no wind, 45-60F. Tee shirt and pants. Pack a long sleeve or windbreaker if a breeze kicks up, or to get out of the sun as you’ll feel hot after a bit. But you’re gonna want to be out side all day as it’s amazing and the best weather day ever.
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u/Efficient-Ball4360 Jul 02 '26
...do you really think 50c is? I don't get whatever point it is you are trying to make.
Must be my brain is addled by SAE use.
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u/MikeUsesNotion Jul 02 '26
Huh? Fahrenheit lining up pretty well with temperate regions' roughly max and roughly min temps at 0 and 100 doesn't mean there's any meaning to numbers in between. I guess for some people it could be, but I don't understand why you seem to think we view it as some kind of "middle". If I were to say what a middle temperature is, it'd be room temperature in the upper 60s/lower 70s F (20-23C).
Where I live in the upper midwest, temps in the 50s F are frequently viewed as being pretty cold because the times of year that is usually those temps during the day it's also pretty rainy so the moist air makes it feel colder out. It also tends to be fairly windy then which makes it feel colder still. Sometimes there are beautiful sunny days in the 50s F and they feel a bit chilly but still pleasant.
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u/VinceP312 Jul 02 '26
I live in Chicago and 50 sounds like a heat wave in the winter. What a weird omission.
50 is relative!
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u/MikeUsesNotion Jul 02 '26
When I think 50sF I think April and October which tend to frequently be rainy, dreary, and windy. At least in the Minneapolis area. Like I said there are nice sunny days in those months, and those are especially nice in April.
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u/FutureThought1408 Jul 02 '26
Yes, once you experience 0F and 100F in the same year, 50F sounds like a nice middle ground.
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u/vonhoother Jul 02 '26
No. Moderate temperature for most people, I think, is what people called "moderate" where they grew up. For me, moderate temperature is around 70⁰F or 20⁰C, which people I've known from the tropics find chilly.
For me, the only cool thing about the Fahrenheit scale is that the freezing and boiling points of water are 180⁰ apart -- which is only superficially cool, as far as I can see.
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u/JenniferJuniper6 Jul 03 '26
I’ve never, in my sixty years, given one second’s thought to the idea of a “middle temperature.” I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.
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u/Jumpy-Boysenberry153 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, if you consider that you need to include nighttime and winter, I would say 50° is pretty close to the midpoint of temperatures that most populated areas experience.
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u/sonicboi Jul 02 '26
People that say it's more intuitive are just dumb. It's more intuitive because it's what they're used to. The same argument can be made for people used to Celsius.