I thought the comment was useful. I think for those that don't know the basis for the tech, they can read described temps as absolute values. I've seen people misunderstand thermoelectric heater/coolers (Peltier coolers) for similar reasons -- the tech can achieve a temperature differential rather than an absolute temperature as some people expect when comparing to traditional compressor-based fridges.
Relative and Absolute temps can generally mess people up too.
From the book Humble Pi by Matt Parker:
"In September 2016 the BBC news reported that both the US and China had signed up to the Paris Agreement on climate change, summarizing the agreement like this: "countries agreed to cut emissions enough to keep the global average rise in temperatures below 2°C (36°F)." The mistake here is not just that the BBC is still giving temperatures in Fahrenheit but that a change of 2°C is not the same as a change of 36°F, even though a temperature of 2°C is the same as 36°F. If you were outside on a day when the temperature was 2°C and you looked at a Fahrenheit thermometer, it would indeed read 36°F. But if the temperature then increased by 2°C, it would go up only by 3.6°F. The crazy thing is, the BBC initially got it correct. Thanks to the amazing website newssniffer.co.uk, which automatically tracks all changes in online news articles, we can see the chaos in the BBC newsroom as a series of numerical edits. To be fair, the article was part of the live coverage of breaking news and was designed to be regularly updated. The first version of the article that mentioned temperature gave the change as 2°C."
Good catch they searched for a unit converter online but didn't realized they confused absolute temperature with a relative difference of temperatures.
Yeah, I think there’s something to this. In the US, the news talks about climate change using Celsius, presumably because that’s how scientists measure it. But from a messaging/persuasion perspective, it’s bad. The average American thinks that “2 degrees” isn’t so bad. And in Fahrenheit that’s (kinda) true. I think climate change should be discussed using the units that the public has intuition for.
Most thermostats I've seen allow changes of 0.5 degrees C. So it seems that the thermostat manufacturers feel that the majority of users can tell a difference.
And sometimes 1 degree C delta is too much for me in a room (e.g. 21.0 is comfortable, 22.0 is not, 21.5 is just right). So it's obviously a personal preference, but at least for me, I can tell a difference between 0.5 degrees C.
And thus for my use case, whole integers in F is a slightly superior user experience since it avoid fractions.
Yeah. While probably the way it's calculated makes sense to reflect how warm or cold a day is, it's making headlines because obviously it's shocking "everyone" when you've to read that more than 30C is unbearable ...
>whereas some people will think -20°C is lower than -65°C
I believe this can happen in the US, but hardly in any place where people are used to Celsius.
I have experienced -30C in Germany and Norway, and -40C in Russia. Even in the mountain in Spain you can get -20C. People have -18C in the freezer.
It is obvious for people what 0C is: water freezes, and that is something that everybody experiences today just using a refrigerator.
But most people are not used to what K means. Only for scientists and maybe engineers is obvious, but you need a lot of things to know before it is easy to understand.
Both of these are in the article, under "crude approximation". The criticism made in the article was that it can be off by ~3 degrees Fahrenheit at normal temperatures.
>The switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius is wild.
In the summer, a too hot day is 100f. Makes sense. I immediately know the difference between 70, 80, 90f. How to dress changes between 70f and 90f.
But if you were to operate in celcius. We're talking 21c, 26c, 32c. I have no way to understand such a small range.
But then in winter. When it's FREEZING aka 0c. I can easily judge then based on the relationship to 0c. Whereas if you operate in f, it's like 31f. I dont get that range.
It might be confusing global temperatures with European temperatures. The article it references doesn't say global for the 2C figure and probably means regional temps. The European 2C makes sense, and the global 0.5C matches other sources.
Is my understanding wrong (or out of date) or the article bad at this point?
I thought the Kelvin scale was designed such that its base is absolute zero so 4.2 Kelvin would be 4.2 degrees above not 4.5?
EDIT: Actually, looking at the num-pad on my keyboard, I'm now assuming that the "4.5" is simply a slip-of-the-finger typo rather than a mistake in understanding.
Absolute temperatures in that context are not so much "meaningless" as actively misleading. Measuring in terms of standard deviation is much more precise and relevant, even if it feels less concrete to those not versed in statistics.
Relative and Absolute temps can generally mess people up too.
From the book Humble Pi by Matt Parker:
"In September 2016 the BBC news reported that both the US and China had signed up to the Paris Agreement on climate change, summarizing the agreement like this: "countries agreed to cut emissions enough to keep the global average rise in temperatures below 2°C (36°F)." The mistake here is not just that the BBC is still giving temperatures in Fahrenheit but that a change of 2°C is not the same as a change of 36°F, even though a temperature of 2°C is the same as 36°F. If you were outside on a day when the temperature was 2°C and you looked at a Fahrenheit thermometer, it would indeed read 36°F. But if the temperature then increased by 2°C, it would go up only by 3.6°F. The crazy thing is, the BBC initially got it correct. Thanks to the amazing website newssniffer.co.uk, which automatically tracks all changes in online news articles, we can see the chaos in the BBC newsroom as a series of numerical edits. To be fair, the article was part of the live coverage of breaking news and was designed to be regularly updated. The first version of the article that mentioned temperature gave the change as 2°C."
(https://books.google.ca/books?id=2IeVDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT223&ots=...)
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