I’ve started school, so I haven’t been posting a lot, but I can’t find the answers to these questions.
In our physics class, we were talking about the temperature scale Fahrenheit and he said that the US is not the only nation standardized to it, and one third world country either in South America or Africa also uses it as the standard, I can’t find out what it is.
Also he asked who discovered that the Earth was round, he said it wasn’t Columbus, Magellan, Galileo, but someone much earlier and was Greek. My first guess was Thales since I don’t know many famous old Greek people that might have discovered that, but I realize now that is obviously not the answer.
I’ll be looking for the answers but if you know it, that would help me.
:OT: why do Americans have different units of measurement than the rest of the world? and why do they drive on the right instead of the left like the rest?(except for Canada and any other contries that I do not know of)
I never understood this
You have different measurements than us
Everyone used to use feet, inches, etc until the mid 1900s when the European nations switched over to the metric system.
actually it’s just England, Australia and some other countries that drive on the left side.
Germany, France, Russia, Usa and Canada… well basically the rest of the world, drive right.
They tried to change the driving side a while back. Trucks first and then cars a week later. Didn’t work :trout: j/k
Talk about the bloody Fahrenheit… Can anyone give me 1 good reason why it’s used ? I mean with celsius; the freezing temp of water is 0 degree; and the boiling temp 100… seems a tad logical to me… I never got how the Fahrenheit worked…
And I think anyway the international unit for temperature is the Kelvin; so why bother…
all Nappie’s fault
after a little research at google:
the romans used to drive on the left side because they had their swords on the left side. For the case of a fight they were abled to pull the sword with the right hand and use it.
… somehow it happened to be that a guy called napoleon, who used to carry his sword on the right side since he was lefthanded, became a french emporor.
England is an Island, and rather conservative concerning alien innovations or invasions, so they kept the lefttraffic thing (and with England the british colonies)
I found out from many sources that Pythagoras was the first to suggest an idea for earth’s sphereical shape, and many Greek philosophers after him like Aristotle built onto his idea. In one of the articles I read, I found out that it was the fault of many medievil Christians for believing the Earth was flat again.
Talk about the bloody Fahrenheit… Can anyone give me 1 good reason why it’s used ? I mean with celsius; the freezing temp of water is 0 degree; and the boiling temp 100… seems a tad logical to me… I never got how the Fahrenheit worked…
And I think anyway the international unit for temperature is the Kelvin; so why bother…
I used to think the same thing until my Physics professor explained it.
For doing calculations/experiments the centigrade scale (kelvin is even better) is the way to go.
For everyday temperature reporting, Farenheit is a better scale. Reason 1: For the most part, temperatures in the US are between 0-100 degrees farenheit. Zero is the coldest it USUALLY gets and 100 is the hottest. This is a very natural scale that is easy to understand (like percentages).
Reason 2: The farenheit scale is more sensitive to temperature changes. It is thought that the human can detect a temperature change of 1 degree farenheit. This makes farenheit a natural unit of measurement. It takes a much larger change in temperature for the centigrade scale to change.
Im pretty sure the way they figured the earth was round was by observing the roundness of the earth’s shadow on the moon. Im taking astronomy this semester;)
The Greeks discovered that the earth is round by observing lunar eclipses
@ teet: sorry, but
those reasons are hardly objective.
Any person measuring in celsius will probably say it is the better scale for daily life. everyone knows if it is hot or cold so no 100% scale is needed. be honest do you really need your daily life temperature scale that small?
I mean I even round something like 28.4 degrees to 30.
Plus know exactly when it’s gonna freeze outside (<0 degrees).
Well us fahrenheitiens also know exactly when it’s gonna freeze outside (less than 32), so you’re number may be more logical but ours still works. poorly, but it works.
Obviously any person used to the centigrade scale will be able to tell if it’s hot or cold outside. I think you’re missing the point of my argument.
My point is that the farenheit scale is a more logical, natural scale. If the smallest temperature change a human being can detect is equal to 1 Farenheit degree, wouldn’t it be sensible to make that the unit of measure?
Coincidentally, it also happens that most temperatures fall within a 0-100 F degree range. A 0-100 range is very natural, unlike a -18 to 38 scale…surely you can agree with this?
Anyway, enough of this…back to the original topic!
