Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh Fahrenheit Clark,
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, Celsius Bryant and Jerry Kelvin Rowland is here
Speaker 1: with us too, And Dave is there a fourth measure
Speaker 1: of temperature? Mamuh, Muggy, Dave, Dave, Muggy see is here
Speaker 1: in spirit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure what just happened.
Speaker 1: To me, Muggy. That was great, Chuck, Uh.
Speaker 2: Celsius and fahrenheit as something we've been talking about a
Speaker 2: little bit lately on the show. Sometimes we do that
Speaker 2: what do you call it, conversion, conversion, almost a transformation,
Speaker 2: the same thing. Sometimes we do that conversion. Sometimes we don't,
Speaker 2: and we you know, some people ask us to and
Speaker 2: sometimes we remember, so we apologize if we don't often
Speaker 2: do that conversion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're selective, Okay, Yeah, because here we're here in
Speaker 1: the United States, which means we're all about farrenheight. So
Speaker 1: really it would just make sense for us to convert
Speaker 1: everything to celsius. Yeah, when we're talking about temperature, because
Speaker 1: basically the rest of the world is all about celsius.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in a little bit. First, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I want to throw back. I don't remember what episode
Speaker 1: it was, but we mentioned a guy named Simohaya who
Speaker 1: is known as the White Death of World War two.
Speaker 1: He was finish and he killed like more Nazis than
Speaker 1: anyone else, and he was just a simple farm hand.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think that might have been a
Speaker 2: listener mail or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we talked about how he would go out
Speaker 1: and shoot people even in weather as low as negative
Speaker 1: forty degrees farentheight, and that set off an avalanche of
Speaker 1: emails when people say, you didn't have to say fahrenheit
Speaker 1: because negative forty is the same in celsius in farrenheit.
Speaker 1: It's the only temperature that's the same in these two
Speaker 1: different scales. And we're going to talk about why finally,
Speaker 1: after all these years.
Speaker 2: That's right and big thanks to HowStuffWorks dot Com and
Speaker 2: Jesslynshields and our old friend Patrick J. Kiger, because they
Speaker 2: put it in a very simple way that's very easy
Speaker 2: to understand. Is that these two different temperatures they are
Speaker 2: and you know, we'll talk about the differences, but celsius
Speaker 2: is larger than fahrenheit, and so when that happens, as
Speaker 2: a runner who is faster than another runner, eventually you
Speaker 2: can lap that slower runner, and eventually Celsius will lap fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: and you lap fahrenheit at negative forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the reason why celsius is bigger than fahrenheit
Speaker 1: is because you have more of a temperature range compressed
Speaker 1: into a smaller scale, where Farrenheight has the same temperature
Speaker 1: range pulled out over a longer scale. The thing is is,
Speaker 1: even when you're talking about that, it still didn't quite
Speaker 1: make sense to me. I'm like, yeah, a runner can
Speaker 1: lap a runner when he's slower. I still don't quite
Speaker 1: get it. And then finally I looked up I looked
Speaker 1: it up on I think Quorra came back with the
Speaker 1: best explanation. They said, think of it as a graph.
Speaker 1: So you've got Farentheight going up at one angle and
Speaker 1: Celsius going up at a slightly different angle. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you zoom out long enough on that graph or far
Speaker 1: enough by that graph, eventually those two lines are going
Speaker 1: to connect with one another. Since they're spreading out from
Speaker 1: zero in different directions, they're not going to connect there,
Speaker 1: but they'll connect behind them in the negative And they
Speaker 1: just so happen to connect at negative forty.
Speaker 2: Right, because Celsius is one. Each degree is one point
Speaker 2: eight times larger than fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, again, because there's more compressed into a smaller scale.
Speaker 2: Right, and that's why you get different freezing and boiling points.
Speaker 2: Of course, everyone knows fahrenheit freezes at thirty two and
Speaker 2: boils at two twelve. Celsius is much cleaner and easier
Speaker 2: to remember because water freezes at zero and boils at
Speaker 2: one hundred.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you really want to think about it,
Speaker 1: it takes much more sophistication and brain power to understand
Speaker 1: farentheight than celsia.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as an American.
Speaker 2: Uh so, if you were to do the formula for conversion,
Speaker 2: which we don't do. We just look it up and
Speaker 2: type it in our little wonder machines.
Speaker 1: Yes, but now we can in our heads even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you have a U, if you want
Speaker 2: to convert from celsius to fahrenheit, you multiply that temp
Speaker 2: in celsius by that one point eight, which is what
Speaker 2: we talked about, was a difference in size, and then
Speaker 2: you add thirty two. It's that simple.
Speaker 1: That's it. I mean, that's it. So for example, so
Speaker 1: I like I still if I see like a temperature
Speaker 1: in celsius something like I have no no idea whether
Speaker 1: that's cold, hot, whatever. But let's take twenty degrees celsius
Speaker 1: for example. You want to find out the farentheight equivalent.
Speaker 1: You got twenty, which is the celsius degree times one
Speaker 1: point eight. That equals thirty six, okay, and then you
Speaker 1: just add the thirty two. And the reason you're adding
Speaker 1: or subtracting thirty two is because you're trying to zero
Speaker 1: out both scales. You're trying to even themount from the
Speaker 1: same starting point. So you either add or subtract thirty two,
Speaker 1: whether you're trying to convert to farent height or celsius.
Speaker 1: So in this case, twenty degrees celsius adds up to
Speaker 1: be sixty eight degrees fahrenheit, and then the same thing
Speaker 1: goes for celsius too. You just flip it around fahrenheit
Speaker 1: minus thirty two divided by one point eight, same thing.
Speaker 1: And so if you do that same thing with negative
Speaker 1: forty degrees celsius, you get negative forty degrees farent height
Speaker 1: and vice versa because they intersect just at that one temperature.
Speaker 1: I love it now, it makes sense, yeah, or it
Speaker 1: does to me. I'm sure I probably just confused everybody.
Speaker 2: How about we take a break in and we'll just
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about why America, like many things,
Speaker 2: is still hung up on using something that the rest
Speaker 2: of the world does not.
Speaker 3: Right, just like the number of stars and the sky,
Speaker 3: there is so much stuck.
Speaker 2: All right. I tease the fact that the United States
Speaker 2: of America and a few other places the Bahamas, Belize,
Speaker 2: came in islands somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I think Palau.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we use fahrenheit, and we stuck with fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: And it's just one of those sort of things that
Speaker 2: Americans stuck to when everyone else over time eventually went
Speaker 2: with celsius or centigrade. No one says centigrade, though, do they.
Speaker 1: Well, that was Celsius's original term for it, but I've
Speaker 1: seen it some places eggheads call it centigrade.
Speaker 2: A German scientist named Daniel Gabrielle Fahrenheit invented fahrenheit in
Speaker 2: the early seventeen hundreds, and a Swedish astronomer not too
Speaker 2: long I think, a few decades later, named Onders Celsius
Speaker 2: or was it Onders centigrade came up with celsius and
Speaker 2: was like, hey, everybody, this is multiples of ten. It's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to remember, works well with the metric system,
Speaker 2: so let's just use that exactly.
Speaker 1: And the metric people were like, yes, it really does work.
Speaker 1: We're all about powers of ten and ten base counting systems,
Speaker 1: so let's go celsius. We're all in with you. And
Speaker 1: Europe just kind of started to go that way. But
Speaker 1: in the English speaking world, centered in the UK, up
Speaker 1: until not that long ago, fahrenheit still reigned. And then
Speaker 1: finally in nineteen sixty one, the met Office in the
Speaker 1: UK said, hey, we're going to start talking about temperatures
Speaker 1: in celsius because we look a little backwards compared to
Speaker 1: our European neighbors. And then as that happened, countries that
Speaker 1: were still part of the British Empire, to one degree
Speaker 1: or another, get a degree. They started following suit and
Speaker 1: converting to celsius too. But the US said, hey, King
Speaker 1: of England, Queen England, we don't care whichever it is.
Speaker 1: You can't push us around. We're sticking with fahrenheit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even though it's kind of funny here. The National
Speaker 2: Weather Service, the US National Weather Surface on the inside,
Speaker 2: they use celsius, but they don't broadcast it out. They
Speaker 2: broadcast it out as fahrenheit because Americans, of course, would
Speaker 2: be like, what are you even talking about with the
Speaker 2: Celsia stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, not only that, I mean, if word ever gets
Speaker 1: out that the National Weather Service actually uses Celsius internally,
Speaker 1: Americans will show up with pitchforks and torches and just
Speaker 1: burn their whole building.
Speaker 2: Down, led by Mo the bartender.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: He always led the pitchforks and torch crowd, which always
Speaker 2: show is very funny to me.
Speaker 1: Well, that crowd's big drinker, so he wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that he was in with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was always right up front. I love that.
Speaker 1: So you got anything else?
Speaker 2: I got nothing else. This one was super short.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it short stuff.
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