this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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xkcd
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I am very surprised that Rankine gets such a high cursedness score. Isn't it just the same as Kelvin but based on Fahrenheit instead of Celsius?
Because it implies you are using US Costumary/Imperial units for science or "fancy" engineering.
Yeah, well that’s a cultural thing really. Celcius and fahrenheit scales are both quite arbitrary. The kelvin scale uses absolute zero, which totally makes sense, but the other fixed point is pretty arbitrary when you think of it. The fahrenheit scale makes sense for the human experience of weather, while the celcius scale makes sense for generally life on Earth where water plays an important role. Neither of them are particularly universal, and they both suck in their unique ways.
see also: natural units
(Edit)
Life Pro Tip: If you take the piss out of two units at the same time, you can make everyone equally angry.
Culturally speaking, it's pretty cursed to use some units that are specific to a country instead of the global standard for science. Extra cursed if it's for serious engineering (just ask NASA).