thermometer, summer, hot

Giving the third degree

People brag about how much more intuitive their particular systems of measurement are. For example, Americans will brag about how Fahrenheit is more intuitive: 0-100 degrees capture most outside temperatures (the actual extreme records are -128° to 134°, but those records are beyond absurd and probably not worth considering). Non-Americans brag about how Celsius is indexed to water: 32 is a weird point to have water freeze and 180° is weirdly arbitrary number of degrees between freezing and boiling.

There are no Kelvin stans except for nerds who spend too long online, so I’ll ignore them.

I have a better system. One that lacks the virtue of widespread adoption, but has every other virtue you could imagine. Click on!

The Styx system has water freezing set at its 0°S, human body temperature at 100°S, water boils at 269.22°, but who cares, because we’re neither water nor scientists (and they should use Kelvin). Every ten degrees feels a bit more drastic than Fahrenheit, but less so than Celsius.

The Earth Extremes system has the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth at 0°E and the hottest at 100°E. Water boils at 129°E, which is uncomfortably close to 100. Every three or four degrees is a huge difference! But at least you’ll always know how your day compares to Saudi Arabia and Antarctica’s worst offerings!

… Those are the two alternative systems I’ve come up with. I wish Styx were adopted instead of Fahrenheit, which, although I like it, is hard to defend sometimes.

 

Absolute Zero

So Cold

So Cold

Coldest

Deadly

Match F/C

Brine Freeze

H2O Freeze

Very Cold Cold Cool Nice Warm Hot Body Temp Very Hot Deadly Hottest H2O Boil

Fahrenheit

-459.67

-400.00 -328.00 -300.00 -200.00 -148.00 -128.60 -100.00 -40.00 0.00 10.00 20.00 32.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 90.00 98.60 110.00 120.00 134.00 200.00 211.30

Celsius

-273.15

-240.00 -200.00 -184.44 -128.89 -100.00 -89.22 -73.33 -40.00 -17.78 -12.22 -6.67 0.00 4.44 10.00 15.56 21.11 26.67 32.22 37.00 43.33 48.89 56.67 93.33 99.61

Kelvin

0.00

33.15 73.15 88.71 144.26 173.15 183.93 199.82 233.15 255.37 260.93 266.48 273.15 277.59 283.15 288.71 294.26 299.82 305.37 310.15 316.48 322.04 329.82 366.48 372.76

Styx

-738.24

-648.65 -540.54 -498.50 -348.35 -270.27 -241.14 -198.20 -108.11 -48.05 -33.03 -18.02 0.00 12.01 27.03 42.04 57.06 72.07 87.09 100.00 117.12 132.13 153.15 252.25 269.22
Earth Extremes -126.07 0 10.89 33.74 48.97 52.78 56.59 61.16 64.2 68.01 71.82 75.63 79.44 83.24 86.52 90.86 94.67 100 125.13 129.44
-50 = brine freeze 25 = cold 50 = nice 75 = warm 125 = phoenix
-200 = dead -100 = dead 0 = freeze 100 = hot 150 =  deadly

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