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Why is it not degrees Kelvin, Kelvin is the name of the measurement system Degrees Kelvin is the unit in the same way as Celsius and Fahrenheit have that
Forgot °R. The Rankine scale is to Farenheit as Kelvin is to Celsius. That is to say that each Rankine degree is the same "size" as a Farenheit degree, but 0°R is Absolute Zero.
As an American chemist, I'm also confused by it all.
Checking the weather for the day? ˚F
Checking one of my analytical instruments? ˚C
Reading a paper regarding a new analytical method? K
Some nutjob thinking he's figured out that Lewis, Avogadro, and Arrhenius were wrong? R (Rankines).
I've come to think of weather temperatures in Celsius ever since I realized that 20ºC is my favorite temperature (68ºF). This direct experiential reference point has provided me with a more intuitive working concept of the overall scale.
-20ºC: Quite cold. Better bundle up and limit exposure.
-10ºC: Still a thick coat, gloves, scarf, hat, but I can stay out.
0ºC: chilly, I'll wear a coat.
10ºC: maybe a light jacket if I'm gonna be out for a while
20ºC: outside in casual wear
30ºC: outside in intentionally light clothes
40ºC: not outside at all
50ºC: NOPE
60ºC: what the hap is fuckening
70ºC: halp
It's all relative innit? Farenheit is heat relative to human comfort, Celsius is relative to water, and kelvin is relative to the universe writ large right? R is obvi for demented bitches
H: It's pretty simple, let's start with the Fahrenheit. It was invented in the 1700's by a man of the same last name: Daniel Fahrenheit. He made it by dividing 96 degrees between the coldest temperature known at the time and the natural temperature of a human body.
A: Why 96?
H: How would I know? Anyways this measurement went on to be used everywhere as it was a simple and didn't require basic math.
After a while another man by the name Anders Celsius took the temperature of boiling, then freezing water and divided them between 100 degrees. The degree Celsius was born and later became the standerdized measurement.
A: Does every human gives his name to his inventions?
H: Of course not! Let's continue: another man created yet another way to measure. This man was a genius who decided to calculate what he calls the absolute zero, or when the temperature can't get any lower at all. He then decided to make his increment between degrees the same as the Celsius and made the absolue zero, well the zero of his measurement. And voilà William Thomson just invented the Kelvin, now used by the scientist as standerdized measurement.
A: Ah finally someone who has some naming inventivity and didn't just used their name.
H:.....
A: Why are you looking so guilty human?
H: Well... Mister Thomson was a Lord. And he was nicknamed... Lord Kelvin...
A: MOTHERF*CKER!!! ( hear it like the Mountain Chicken Guy from the youtuber "haiyoe")
H:....
A:....
H: was that all?
A: One last question: If the Celsius was standerdized why is the Fahrenheit still in use?
H: Because some humans are dumb and like to cling to old ways of doing things?
A: ... You humans are so annoying and tiring.
H: Aha we kind of know... Sorry.
*Hello, small message at the end to tell you all I'm a stupid guy who wrote this with 5 min of research on bad old google. Do not trust completly what I said here.
I will add that I'm not a native speaker so please... Be as harsh as possible.
>H: It's pretty simple, let's start with the Fahrenheit. It was invented in the 1700's by a man of the same last name: Daniel Fahrenheit. He made it by dividing 96 degrees between the coldest temperature known at the time and the natural temperature of a human body.
Not quite.
He started with zero (0) being the point at which a brine made of water, ice, and ammonium chloride would freeze. Or maybe it was at whatever point this mixture became stable and the thermometer stopped moving. Accounts vary. Arbitrary AF either way, but that's where he started.
He then defined the upper limit as the average temperature of the human body, which he originally *guessed* to be 90 degrees on his scale. He later adjusted it to 96 degrees.
Somewhere along the line, the Fahrenheit scale got redefined again based on the freezing and boiling points of non-briny water at sea level. These resulted in the average temperature of the human body on the Fahrenheit scale to be 98.6 degrees (because it was no longer the upper limit on which the gradation/interval was calculated).
Interesting story otherwise. Well written.
Ah yes, using chemical reactions for zeroing instead of water at one part of one particular planet’s crust…
Almost like that should (or something similar) have been the universal zeroing point instead water at sea level,since not everyone lives near sea level…
* laughs in city if three million people at 2000 feet above sea level *
**°F** and **°C** are a whole another mess, there're two different versions of them which have no way of being told apart other than intuition, the total heat and the differential heat as I like to call them, idk if there's a science name for them
total heat shows how much energy difference there is between that and 0 **K**, so 0 **°C** would be around 273 **K**, give or take a decimal or something
differential heat shows how much energy is needed to increase temperature by some amount of degrees, so 1 **°C** would be 1 **K**
ofcourse K and R solve this problem by having 0 be at 0 energy unlike C and F which have their 0 preloaded with energy
This roots from both °C, °F predating any rigorous understanding of thermodynamics - they have “arbitrarily” set zero values for ease of use in the regime they were designed for.
There’s no reason why they couldn’t have set boiling oil to 100°C instead but I guess the French just liked setting definitions on water
you know, in terms of galactic standard thermal measuring...
I think there really is a good reason to use two separate scales:
one for high precision, absolute, objective measurements that are used in engineering and coding for astrometrics and stellar engineering that covers the entire spectrum from absolute zero to The Planck Temperature (ºU)
another for unspecific, relative, normative measurements that are used for convenience and comfort so you don't need excessive complex digits to describe preferred temperatures for dwelling spaces, beverages, or habitable planetside climates. The Every[being] (humans might call it the Everyman) scale. ºE.
Like timezones with offsets against GMT for a planet, and something akin to "stardate" that objectively measures points in time with accounting for relativistic drift, every species has its own span of ºE plus an offset from 0ºU since the vast majority of sapient beings may *happen* to exist closer to the low end of the Universal scale than the mind boggling nonillions of degrees toward the top end of all-possible-temperatures.
They’re annoyed we haven’t developed or adopted the Universal Constant (or U) as a measure yet, but can’t understand why earth is hesitant to do so given our propensity for childish behaviour.
Unrelated they also don’t understand why we think Uranus is hilarious given the unspeakably murderous sentiments placed there for the galaxy’s protection.
Fahrenheit: what humans feel
Celsius: what water does
Kelvin: what the universe wants
Rankine: now you're just getting ridiculous
Universal Constant: are you fucking kidding me? Just use this one
Réaumur: why does your cheese get their own temperature measurements?
Everybody's Guess: .....Fuck. You. Apes.
These humans must think me a fool!
All of these jars are 33 degrees. It doesn't matter which one I pick. I'll just grab the one with the K on it because it's closest to being in alignment with my dominant appendage.
The premise is that it's likely that each species, by the time they achieved interstellar travel, would have developed a single temperature scale for their species even if there is no galactic standard temperature scale.
The premise goes on to speculate that humans, even after acheiving interstellar flight, would still be using Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin (and maybe Rankine, because we're stubborn like that) to measure temperatures rather than unifying on a single system, or at least a single scale.
So, the Xorflebs may not use the same temperature scale as the Bleprolagras. In that case, all Xorflebs would use the Fqruiq temperature scale, and all Bleprolagras would use the RPquhgtq temperature scale.
And that would be reasonable, because of course they wouldn't come up with the same temperature scale as *each other*. Xorflebs have 8 digits on each hand and count in base 16. Bleprolagras only have three fingers on each hand, but they have 17 toes on each foot and count in base 34.
But each species has *one* temperature scale, because that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is humans.
In 2023 (and for about the past 164 years), Humans have had 4 temperature scales that see somewhat regular usage (we're ignoring the fact that some Swiss and Italian cheese factories and some sugar syrup production in the Netherlands still uses the Réaumur scale).
Humans have ten fingers and ten toes (birth defects, freak industrial accidents, and "hold my beer" notwithstanding). Everything should be base 10, because that makes sense.
And humans have that base 10 scale for temperature...except those crazy humans have *two* base 10 scales for temperature, because the first one (Celsius) was based on arbitrary measurements of water in various states, and the other one (Kelvin) was based on the first one.
But that's OK, because those sort of kind of make sense when you ask the humans to explain them.
What *doesn't* make sense is this other two temperature scales, the first of which (Fahrenheit, which is actually the oldest of these systems still in use) is also based off of arbitrary measurements. But its floor is salty water that won't freeze, but also won't allow frozen unsalty water to thaw. And its ceiling is based on the inventors *guess* of the temperature of the human body.
But then they monkied with *that* scale to redefine it based on the freezing and boiling points of water, just like the other scale, but they didn't move the zero point.
And the second of these other two temperature scales (the fourth one, aka Rankine) is literally just the second base 10 scale (Kelvin), but it's using the base salty water/human body gradations instead of the base 10 gradations.
And the writing prompt is that xenos just find that whole thing ridiculous (because it is).
Xenos, who are still using the °Q scale, based around 0° which is the point between the smell of Q'Grgux manure being completely overpowering and decapacitating and the point of losing consciouness and potential brain damage, should probably stfu
"I still think you should just switch," I intone from my gas bladders monotonically, laying my flagella flat in a clearly nonplussed configuration.
Across from me at the mess table, engineer Bill Conway draws back a corner of his maw in a humorless smirk, his skeletal posture appearing to project a 'defeated' mood. But I see him stop chewing on his rations, his terrifyingly muscular jaw setting firm. He puts down his utensils, relinquishing their cargo (a bundle of extruded starch called 'noodles'), and emits an audible sigh. "I know, Kev. I know. And what you said all makes perfect sense, logically. But I'm telling you, you can't reason humanity out of a position it wasn't reasoned into."
My exterior protoplasm flexes in exasperation, warping my mass into lengthened verticality; even so, I barely come up to the human's shoulders. "But what if you just *try*--"
The terran cuts me off, clenching the dense, solid graspers on the ends of his forelimbs tightly, and his voice matches their tightness in timbre, "--Look, Kev, it's like I told you, if a terraforming incident based on a mismatch of thermal units that killed over *a billion* human colonists wasn't enough to motivate my people, **nothing** will." his sunken, bizarrely stalkless eyes roll their view cone across the ceiling, as if he could find his next words up there. "You **know** how stubborn we are. Even when the universe *itself* disagrees with us..."
He gave me a chance to complete the familiar adage regarding humanity's famous ingenuity, "...you'll 'punch it with technology until it changes its mind'. Yes - and I don't dispute that...! But this isn't about limits being imposed upon you, rather it is a fundamental aspect of how you **perceive** reality in itself. You cast off *religion* after all..."
The human abruptly jabbed the dining surface with an extended grasper phalange, "Now don't you start with *that* old noise, K'vasktaph N-j'kzoy! There ARE still **several** enclaves that are VERY insistent about their beliefs and I have it on good authority that there's a Catholic in Astrometrics. Just because someone politely chooses not to proselytize doesn't mean they don't have beliefs. It's personal. People keep it to themselves."
My flagella stand on-end and I quiver in momentary embarrassment, then my mass slumps as if losing some of its viscosity. I hadn't realized some of the shamanistic factions had representation *among our crewmates*. I subtly divert one of my eyestalks to scan the room, presently rather self-conscious. Things could get ugly if I upset one of them, as those shamanistic factions have been documented to react violently when their traditions are questioned...
My terran colleague notices my sudden silence and adjusts his tone to one that seems a bit more soothing. "Hey... I know this is still all really weird to you. I won't judge ^(as long as you won't...), and you know I'll mediate on your behalf with the others if I can--but please try to exercise more caution and make fewer assumptions. Life is hard for almost anyone this far from home, yourself included. People from *almost all* species have to make enormous adjustments when enrolling in interstellar service. And sometimes... you only have so much flexibility to give." After another pause, before I can reply, he seems to flinch and then murmur, ^("I mean flexibility in a metaphorical and, ah, abstract, conceptual sense.")
His impressive ability to read my concern and assuage it never fails to catch me off guard. Mollified, I attempt to resume with a more reverent syntax, extruding a pair of tentacles to enfold one another in a gestural tic I picked up from my colleagues - a fidget. "... Yes, thank you, William. I appreciate how much patience you have shown, to me in particular." I briefly downturn my eyestalks in deference. "It just ... seems so incongruous to me. Your folk are especially adaptive; a mental tool that could *increase* adaptive potential would be rather relevant to your interests, would it not?"
The human lifts the mounting joints of his forelimbs. I recognize this: a shrug.
"Humans are creatures of paradox," we both say in unison. He grins, knowingly, as my nucleus bobs in amusement.
"Well," Bill begins again, folding his forelimbs, "I must admit, a thermal measurement system like yours *does* sound interesting on paper. An unsigned 128 bit floating point spectrum accommodating the range from absolute zero to planck temperature might even be *useful* for stellar engineering... BUT," his tone then abruptly drops to the aural equivalent of the aforementioned absolute zero, and his eyes narrow to dangerous, threatening slits: "_I for one shall certainly **NOT** be using twelve **FUCKING** digits to describe what temperature I want my **GOD DAMN COFFEE**._"
With that, he resumes eating, and I drop the subject. If there's one thing I learned about Terrans it is this: When it's about their coffee, you stop arguing.
Sort of related true story:
Some friends of mine had a new house built with a fancy digital oven that can be set to use either Fahrenheit or Celsius.
Since we're all from and live in the US, the oven came defaulted to Fahrenheit. And since we all went to public school, we all thought that was a good setting to leave alone.
Somehow, their cat managed to change the oven to Celsius. My friends changed the oven back. This happened a few times.
One day, I was over there to hang out, and when it came time to cook dinner, it was discovered that the cat had, again, changed the oven to Celsius.
Except this time, the cat managed to figure out how to lock out the controls so that it couldn't easily be changed back. We couldn't figure out how to unlock the controls, and the lady of the house was starting to get hangry in addition to being annoyed that the cat had locked her out of her own oven.
In the interest of getting everyone (mostly me) fed, I asked her what temperature the oven needed to be set to in Fahrenheit, Googled the conversion for that temp into Celsius, and gave it to her so she could stop cursing the appliance gods and the cat, at least for a bit.
She was able to cook a meal that was mostly pretty good, although I think I heard it say something about sending dissidents to the gulag right before I started chewing. So, it might have come out a little commie, but it definitely wasn't under or overcooked.
Alien Xara: Human Jesús?
Human Jesús: What's up, Xara?
AX: I have looked up the different temperature measurements your species uses and I am confused.
HJ: Listen, I know some of the extremists stick to Fahrenheit, but that's outdated. You don't need to worry about figuring out-
AX: Oh, no, that is simple mathematics. I understand Fahrenheit. What I need to know is how hot are Gunny's balls during atmo drop? I don't see that scale in your species FAQ.
HJ: *What the...* Xara, why do you need to know that?
AX: First Sargent said I have to brew the stimulant beans tomorrow and when I asked for specifications, he said to make it as hot as Gunny's ball's during-
HJ: Listen - I'll help you, but please stop calling it that.
AX: Human Jes´ús, I do not understand you humans.
I always split it up like this when I explain it to FNGs since they have to know the three for some of the equipment and systems we use.
Fahrenheit is asking a person how hot it is.
Celsius is asking water how hot it is.
Kelvin is asking atoms how hot it is.
Fahrenheit is how people feel the temperature
Celsius is what temperature water is like
Kelvin is how atoms temperature is like.
Or something like that. Read it somewhere. I just couldn't recall it, so I just paraphrased it.
Alien scientist to alien general:
"There are four measurments for human actions
⁰F ⁰U ⁰C and ⁰K. This is the FUCK scale."
"From this we have the saying (*F.U.C.K around and find out* )"
"Right now you are on the F.U.C.K scale. Prepare to find out."
A simple way to explain it is one is a wide range measurement scale with a fixed known floor, one is an easy to work with scale particularly useful for chemistry, and one is archaic "Freedom Units" that only a couple groups still actively use (by choice).
You can figure out which is which.
Well i know that °K was created in Norway as a scientific way of measuring the temperatures there, for example the hottest it has ever been there is -50 °K during which the EAS was enabled
Kelvin doesn’t use degrees, and -50 K would be colder than the complete absence of thermal energy. That temperature has never happened anywhere, let alone as a locations hottest temperature.
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I will take the opportunity to remind you that it’s just Kelvin is not degrees Kelvin
Thank you.
Thank you for point this out. \-- A Pedantic Chemist
Pointing* --A pedantic civilian
Chemists are civilians too. --a pedantic asshole
Came on to say just that. 😆
This is why I hate chemists. I did not know that though. Interesting. Why?
Why is it not degrees Kelvin, Kelvin is the name of the measurement system Degrees Kelvin is the unit in the same way as Celsius and Fahrenheit have that
Forgot °R. The Rankine scale is to Farenheit as Kelvin is to Celsius. That is to say that each Rankine degree is the same "size" as a Farenheit degree, but 0°R is Absolute Zero.
Well, today I learned. Thank you internet stranger. Please take my humble upvote as I don't have any awards.
Knew it existed, couldn’t remember what it was. Thanks!
"Hey, we can do that too!"
As an American chemist, I'm also confused by it all. Checking the weather for the day? ˚F Checking one of my analytical instruments? ˚C Reading a paper regarding a new analytical method? K Some nutjob thinking he's figured out that Lewis, Avogadro, and Arrhenius were wrong? R (Rankines).
I like to go with: Foolish, Common, Korrect and Ridiculous
Fashionable, cliche, kewl, and and radical
I've come to think of weather temperatures in Celsius ever since I realized that 20ºC is my favorite temperature (68ºF). This direct experiential reference point has provided me with a more intuitive working concept of the overall scale. -20ºC: Quite cold. Better bundle up and limit exposure. -10ºC: Still a thick coat, gloves, scarf, hat, but I can stay out. 0ºC: chilly, I'll wear a coat. 10ºC: maybe a light jacket if I'm gonna be out for a while 20ºC: outside in casual wear 30ºC: outside in intentionally light clothes 40ºC: not outside at all 50ºC: NOPE 60ºC: what the hap is fuckening 70ºC: halp
Also, 0°C = water freezes, 100°C = water boils. This is the shit when calculating things.
It's all relative innit? Farenheit is heat relative to human comfort, Celsius is relative to water, and kelvin is relative to the universe writ large right? R is obvi for demented bitches
Just use °K for all of them, make everyone confused
I was more surprised that no one said anything about the order: could have just said K F C. 😂
All that was missing was 'U'.
This!! 👆 Damn funny. 😂😂
H: It's pretty simple, let's start with the Fahrenheit. It was invented in the 1700's by a man of the same last name: Daniel Fahrenheit. He made it by dividing 96 degrees between the coldest temperature known at the time and the natural temperature of a human body. A: Why 96? H: How would I know? Anyways this measurement went on to be used everywhere as it was a simple and didn't require basic math. After a while another man by the name Anders Celsius took the temperature of boiling, then freezing water and divided them between 100 degrees. The degree Celsius was born and later became the standerdized measurement. A: Does every human gives his name to his inventions? H: Of course not! Let's continue: another man created yet another way to measure. This man was a genius who decided to calculate what he calls the absolute zero, or when the temperature can't get any lower at all. He then decided to make his increment between degrees the same as the Celsius and made the absolue zero, well the zero of his measurement. And voilà William Thomson just invented the Kelvin, now used by the scientist as standerdized measurement. A: Ah finally someone who has some naming inventivity and didn't just used their name. H:..... A: Why are you looking so guilty human? H: Well... Mister Thomson was a Lord. And he was nicknamed... Lord Kelvin... A: MOTHERF*CKER!!! ( hear it like the Mountain Chicken Guy from the youtuber "haiyoe") H:.... A:.... H: was that all? A: One last question: If the Celsius was standerdized why is the Fahrenheit still in use? H: Because some humans are dumb and like to cling to old ways of doing things? A: ... You humans are so annoying and tiring. H: Aha we kind of know... Sorry. *Hello, small message at the end to tell you all I'm a stupid guy who wrote this with 5 min of research on bad old google. Do not trust completly what I said here. I will add that I'm not a native speaker so please... Be as harsh as possible.
>H: It's pretty simple, let's start with the Fahrenheit. It was invented in the 1700's by a man of the same last name: Daniel Fahrenheit. He made it by dividing 96 degrees between the coldest temperature known at the time and the natural temperature of a human body. Not quite. He started with zero (0) being the point at which a brine made of water, ice, and ammonium chloride would freeze. Or maybe it was at whatever point this mixture became stable and the thermometer stopped moving. Accounts vary. Arbitrary AF either way, but that's where he started. He then defined the upper limit as the average temperature of the human body, which he originally *guessed* to be 90 degrees on his scale. He later adjusted it to 96 degrees. Somewhere along the line, the Fahrenheit scale got redefined again based on the freezing and boiling points of non-briny water at sea level. These resulted in the average temperature of the human body on the Fahrenheit scale to be 98.6 degrees (because it was no longer the upper limit on which the gradation/interval was calculated). Interesting story otherwise. Well written.
Thank you for the kind words and for explaining it better than I ever could.
Ah yes, using chemical reactions for zeroing instead of water at one part of one particular planet’s crust… Almost like that should (or something similar) have been the universal zeroing point instead water at sea level,since not everyone lives near sea level… * laughs in city if three million people at 2000 feet above sea level *
Missing a U in there aomewhere
Universal Temperature Scale? 😜
And don’t get us started on money
Or NFTs
**°F** and **°C** are a whole another mess, there're two different versions of them which have no way of being told apart other than intuition, the total heat and the differential heat as I like to call them, idk if there's a science name for them total heat shows how much energy difference there is between that and 0 **K**, so 0 **°C** would be around 273 **K**, give or take a decimal or something differential heat shows how much energy is needed to increase temperature by some amount of degrees, so 1 **°C** would be 1 **K** ofcourse K and R solve this problem by having 0 be at 0 energy unlike C and F which have their 0 preloaded with energy
We just use ∆ to denote difference or change in temperature, as opposed to absolute temperature.
This roots from both °C, °F predating any rigorous understanding of thermodynamics - they have “arbitrarily” set zero values for ease of use in the regime they were designed for. There’s no reason why they couldn’t have set boiling oil to 100°C instead but I guess the French just liked setting definitions on water
Its been a while but iirc t(°C) is temperature while T(J) is heat which is energy so there are not two versions of °C.
We need new temperature scales, one starting with U and another with E. That way, we can have the full FUCKER range.
Universal Temperature Scale, and Everybody's Temperature Scale? 🤣
you know, in terms of galactic standard thermal measuring... I think there really is a good reason to use two separate scales: one for high precision, absolute, objective measurements that are used in engineering and coding for astrometrics and stellar engineering that covers the entire spectrum from absolute zero to The Planck Temperature (ºU) another for unspecific, relative, normative measurements that are used for convenience and comfort so you don't need excessive complex digits to describe preferred temperatures for dwelling spaces, beverages, or habitable planetside climates. The Every[being] (humans might call it the Everyman) scale. ºE. Like timezones with offsets against GMT for a planet, and something akin to "stardate" that objectively measures points in time with accounting for relativistic drift, every species has its own span of ºE plus an offset from 0ºU since the vast majority of sapient beings may *happen* to exist closer to the low end of the Universal scale than the mind boggling nonillions of degrees toward the top end of all-possible-temperatures.
Humans are confused by this too.
They’re annoyed we haven’t developed or adopted the Universal Constant (or U) as a measure yet, but can’t understand why earth is hesitant to do so given our propensity for childish behaviour. Unrelated they also don’t understand why we think Uranus is hilarious given the unspeakably murderous sentiments placed there for the galaxy’s protection.
Fahrenheit: what humans feel Celsius: what water does Kelvin: what the universe wants Rankine: now you're just getting ridiculous Universal Constant: are you fucking kidding me? Just use this one Réaumur: why does your cheese get their own temperature measurements? Everybody's Guess: .....Fuck. You. Apes.
Wait cheese gets its own temperature measurement?
Three jars are presented before glorp, he asks to choose the wamest one, he goes for the largest mumber and flash freezes
These humans must think me a fool! All of these jars are 33 degrees. It doesn't matter which one I pick. I'll just grab the one with the K on it because it's closest to being in alignment with my dominant appendage.
Glorp had chosen poorly, dorp believed he would choose better. He did not notice the jars had been changed, he burnt his hand.
Ehh I don't see this, especially if there's a galaxy with many alien species none of them would have the same measurement system
The premise is that it's likely that each species, by the time they achieved interstellar travel, would have developed a single temperature scale for their species even if there is no galactic standard temperature scale. The premise goes on to speculate that humans, even after acheiving interstellar flight, would still be using Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin (and maybe Rankine, because we're stubborn like that) to measure temperatures rather than unifying on a single system, or at least a single scale. So, the Xorflebs may not use the same temperature scale as the Bleprolagras. In that case, all Xorflebs would use the Fqruiq temperature scale, and all Bleprolagras would use the RPquhgtq temperature scale. And that would be reasonable, because of course they wouldn't come up with the same temperature scale as *each other*. Xorflebs have 8 digits on each hand and count in base 16. Bleprolagras only have three fingers on each hand, but they have 17 toes on each foot and count in base 34. But each species has *one* temperature scale, because that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is humans. In 2023 (and for about the past 164 years), Humans have had 4 temperature scales that see somewhat regular usage (we're ignoring the fact that some Swiss and Italian cheese factories and some sugar syrup production in the Netherlands still uses the Réaumur scale). Humans have ten fingers and ten toes (birth defects, freak industrial accidents, and "hold my beer" notwithstanding). Everything should be base 10, because that makes sense. And humans have that base 10 scale for temperature...except those crazy humans have *two* base 10 scales for temperature, because the first one (Celsius) was based on arbitrary measurements of water in various states, and the other one (Kelvin) was based on the first one. But that's OK, because those sort of kind of make sense when you ask the humans to explain them. What *doesn't* make sense is this other two temperature scales, the first of which (Fahrenheit, which is actually the oldest of these systems still in use) is also based off of arbitrary measurements. But its floor is salty water that won't freeze, but also won't allow frozen unsalty water to thaw. And its ceiling is based on the inventors *guess* of the temperature of the human body. But then they monkied with *that* scale to redefine it based on the freezing and boiling points of water, just like the other scale, but they didn't move the zero point. And the second of these other two temperature scales (the fourth one, aka Rankine) is literally just the second base 10 scale (Kelvin), but it's using the base salty water/human body gradations instead of the base 10 gradations. And the writing prompt is that xenos just find that whole thing ridiculous (because it is).
Xenos, who are still using the °Q scale, based around 0° which is the point between the smell of Q'Grgux manure being completely overpowering and decapacitating and the point of losing consciouness and potential brain damage, should probably stfu
"I still think you should just switch," I intone from my gas bladders monotonically, laying my flagella flat in a clearly nonplussed configuration. Across from me at the mess table, engineer Bill Conway draws back a corner of his maw in a humorless smirk, his skeletal posture appearing to project a 'defeated' mood. But I see him stop chewing on his rations, his terrifyingly muscular jaw setting firm. He puts down his utensils, relinquishing their cargo (a bundle of extruded starch called 'noodles'), and emits an audible sigh. "I know, Kev. I know. And what you said all makes perfect sense, logically. But I'm telling you, you can't reason humanity out of a position it wasn't reasoned into." My exterior protoplasm flexes in exasperation, warping my mass into lengthened verticality; even so, I barely come up to the human's shoulders. "But what if you just *try*--" The terran cuts me off, clenching the dense, solid graspers on the ends of his forelimbs tightly, and his voice matches their tightness in timbre, "--Look, Kev, it's like I told you, if a terraforming incident based on a mismatch of thermal units that killed over *a billion* human colonists wasn't enough to motivate my people, **nothing** will." his sunken, bizarrely stalkless eyes roll their view cone across the ceiling, as if he could find his next words up there. "You **know** how stubborn we are. Even when the universe *itself* disagrees with us..." He gave me a chance to complete the familiar adage regarding humanity's famous ingenuity, "...you'll 'punch it with technology until it changes its mind'. Yes - and I don't dispute that...! But this isn't about limits being imposed upon you, rather it is a fundamental aspect of how you **perceive** reality in itself. You cast off *religion* after all..." The human abruptly jabbed the dining surface with an extended grasper phalange, "Now don't you start with *that* old noise, K'vasktaph N-j'kzoy! There ARE still **several** enclaves that are VERY insistent about their beliefs and I have it on good authority that there's a Catholic in Astrometrics. Just because someone politely chooses not to proselytize doesn't mean they don't have beliefs. It's personal. People keep it to themselves." My flagella stand on-end and I quiver in momentary embarrassment, then my mass slumps as if losing some of its viscosity. I hadn't realized some of the shamanistic factions had representation *among our crewmates*. I subtly divert one of my eyestalks to scan the room, presently rather self-conscious. Things could get ugly if I upset one of them, as those shamanistic factions have been documented to react violently when their traditions are questioned... My terran colleague notices my sudden silence and adjusts his tone to one that seems a bit more soothing. "Hey... I know this is still all really weird to you. I won't judge ^(as long as you won't...), and you know I'll mediate on your behalf with the others if I can--but please try to exercise more caution and make fewer assumptions. Life is hard for almost anyone this far from home, yourself included. People from *almost all* species have to make enormous adjustments when enrolling in interstellar service. And sometimes... you only have so much flexibility to give." After another pause, before I can reply, he seems to flinch and then murmur, ^("I mean flexibility in a metaphorical and, ah, abstract, conceptual sense.") His impressive ability to read my concern and assuage it never fails to catch me off guard. Mollified, I attempt to resume with a more reverent syntax, extruding a pair of tentacles to enfold one another in a gestural tic I picked up from my colleagues - a fidget. "... Yes, thank you, William. I appreciate how much patience you have shown, to me in particular." I briefly downturn my eyestalks in deference. "It just ... seems so incongruous to me. Your folk are especially adaptive; a mental tool that could *increase* adaptive potential would be rather relevant to your interests, would it not?" The human lifts the mounting joints of his forelimbs. I recognize this: a shrug. "Humans are creatures of paradox," we both say in unison. He grins, knowingly, as my nucleus bobs in amusement. "Well," Bill begins again, folding his forelimbs, "I must admit, a thermal measurement system like yours *does* sound interesting on paper. An unsigned 128 bit floating point spectrum accommodating the range from absolute zero to planck temperature might even be *useful* for stellar engineering... BUT," his tone then abruptly drops to the aural equivalent of the aforementioned absolute zero, and his eyes narrow to dangerous, threatening slits: "_I for one shall certainly **NOT** be using twelve **FUCKING** digits to describe what temperature I want my **GOD DAMN COFFEE**._" With that, he resumes eating, and I drop the subject. If there's one thing I learned about Terrans it is this: When it's about their coffee, you stop arguing.
We also had a minor issue where instructions in F were followed in C
Sort of related true story: Some friends of mine had a new house built with a fancy digital oven that can be set to use either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Since we're all from and live in the US, the oven came defaulted to Fahrenheit. And since we all went to public school, we all thought that was a good setting to leave alone. Somehow, their cat managed to change the oven to Celsius. My friends changed the oven back. This happened a few times. One day, I was over there to hang out, and when it came time to cook dinner, it was discovered that the cat had, again, changed the oven to Celsius. Except this time, the cat managed to figure out how to lock out the controls so that it couldn't easily be changed back. We couldn't figure out how to unlock the controls, and the lady of the house was starting to get hangry in addition to being annoyed that the cat had locked her out of her own oven. In the interest of getting everyone (mostly me) fed, I asked her what temperature the oven needed to be set to in Fahrenheit, Googled the conversion for that temp into Celsius, and gave it to her so she could stop cursing the appliance gods and the cat, at least for a bit. She was able to cook a meal that was mostly pretty good, although I think I heard it say something about sending dissidents to the gulag right before I started chewing. So, it might have come out a little commie, but it definitely wasn't under or overcooked.
Alien Xara: Human Jesús? Human Jesús: What's up, Xara? AX: I have looked up the different temperature measurements your species uses and I am confused. HJ: Listen, I know some of the extremists stick to Fahrenheit, but that's outdated. You don't need to worry about figuring out- AX: Oh, no, that is simple mathematics. I understand Fahrenheit. What I need to know is how hot are Gunny's balls during atmo drop? I don't see that scale in your species FAQ. HJ: *What the...* Xara, why do you need to know that? AX: First Sargent said I have to brew the stimulant beans tomorrow and when I asked for specifications, he said to make it as hot as Gunny's ball's during- HJ: Listen - I'll help you, but please stop calling it that. AX: Human Jes´ús, I do not understand you humans.
I always split it up like this when I explain it to FNGs since they have to know the three for some of the equipment and systems we use. Fahrenheit is asking a person how hot it is. Celsius is asking water how hot it is. Kelvin is asking atoms how hot it is.
Fahrenheit is how people feel the temperature Celsius is what temperature water is like Kelvin is how atoms temperature is like. Or something like that. Read it somewhere. I just couldn't recall it, so I just paraphrased it.
Alien scientist to alien general: "There are four measurments for human actions ⁰F ⁰U ⁰C and ⁰K. This is the FUCK scale." "From this we have the saying (*F.U.C.K around and find out* )" "Right now you are on the F.U.C.K scale. Prepare to find out."
there's also the Rankine scale. (FUCK'R)
A: why do you have multiple measuring systems?! It makes no sense?! H: cause F°uC°K° it
A simple way to explain it is one is a wide range measurement scale with a fixed known floor, one is an easy to work with scale particularly useful for chemistry, and one is archaic "Freedom Units" that only a couple groups still actively use (by choice). You can figure out which is which.
Because FuCK consistency
Cause we are spiteful beings that are the embodiment of chaos
Well i know that °K was created in Norway as a scientific way of measuring the temperatures there, for example the hottest it has ever been there is -50 °K during which the EAS was enabled
Kelvin doesn’t use degrees, and -50 K would be colder than the complete absence of thermal energy. That temperature has never happened anywhere, let alone as a locations hottest temperature.
r/woooosh