29 People Share Things That Americans Do Which Require An Explanation For Non-Americans

Back in the early 18th century, the Fahrenheit measurement system was actually pretty useful. It comes from Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German scientist born in Poland in 1686. As a young man, Fahrenheit became obsessed with thermometers. This may seem weird, but measuring temperature was a big problem at the time. No one had really invented a consistent, reliable way to measure temperature objectively. "Fahrenheit was still only twenty-eight years old when he stunned the world by making a pair of thermometers that both gave the same reading," the University of Houston's John Lienhard writes. "No one had ever managed to do that before." As an early inventor of the thermometer as we know it, Fahrenheit naturally had to put something on them to mark out different temperatures. The scale he used became what we now call Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit set zero at the lowest temperature he could get a water and salt mixture to reach. He then used a (very slightly incorrect) measurement of the av

B/c Fahrenheit came first, was original measurement, and what scientists used until the later 19th century. We use the Original, you guys all switched and we didnt. Our scale is not based on freezing temp like celsius, but rather based on air temp and temp stability

Why do Brits think stone makes sense as a unit of measurement? "He weighted 13 stone, 8 pounds". Just use pounds if you're going to put it in there anyway. Don't make me multiply by 14 every time I hear that stupid term.

While celsius seems superior, with freezing point of water being 0° and boiling point being 100°, fahrenheit is run off of a much more important variable- air temperature.

The whole world likes to judge the U.S. for being different. We understand the measurements we use, so what's the problem?

Fahrenheit was invented the same way as all imperial measurements, by choosing measurements first and then comparing values. A great way of understanding it is by thinking in terms of percents. 50°=50%: cold, 75%: nice, 100%: hot. Thanks for reading.

I must be honest it just the way we were taught in elementary school

Why should it matter? People should be able to use any system that works for them.

It's what we are taught. It's what the weatherman on tv uses. Don't know why it started, I wish we used celcius.

Agreed

We don't think it makes more sense, it's just how we were raised and we're too lazy to change and learn a different system.

Freedomheit should be interpreted as % of hotness. At 80F it's 80% hot out, at 100F it's 100% hot out, and at 0F it's 0% hot out so you'll probably want more than that Tshirt.

Habit, mostly. Plus too many Americans think that if we are doing something then it must be right. The idea of changing because of what foreigners think is not acceptable to the mindset of too many Americans. The good news is that we're not all the same.

I had to look this up, and it seemed stupid until now, and I'm an american. 300 years ago, it was a lot harder to accurately measure temperature. No two thermometers ever gave the same reading, making it virtually impossible to come up with a consistent, reliable temperature measurement system. So one guy managed to get two thermometers to come up with the same reading one day, and he seized his chance. He set the lowest temperature that he could get salt water down to as 0º, and then for some reason, made his other fixed temperature, the body's temperature, 96º. When the rest of the world had switched over to the metric system, the congress decided it was high time we switched, too. However, the law was written as optional, and no one wanted to switch over, learning an entirely new system of measurements. This is a major problem, though. It makes it so that American children have to learn the conversion equations for the metric system in science when they'll forget it in a year, making it a pointless waste of time. And there are far more opportunities for confusion in all fields, like medications, by making a mistake with a conversion and accidentally overdosing an otherwise harmless medication, or underdosing a very critical medication, such as one to help with sleeping, or personality disorders, or a diet pill. I don't want to switch, just because it would be frustrating, but we should, or rather, we should have switched a long time ago.

as an american... i agree

Fahrenheit degrees relate to how humans feel temperature. Celsius degrees are based around the temperature water freezes and boils. So Fahrenheit makes more sense when in relation to people, like air temperature.

We don't.

As I understand it, Fahrenheit was originally based on a scale of 0 to 100: 0 was the coldest temperature the relevant scientist could achieve in the laboratory (the freezing point of a salt-water mixture) and 100 was human body temperature (now considered closer to 98.6 F).

Fahrenheit is about Body Temperature. But the man used 100 as the baseline for the human body and his wife's temp was elevated at the time. So you can kinda use it as a feels like gauge. I fyoure gonna do science we do use celsius.

because america always has to have the last word

Who uses kelvin

I thought everybody knew this. The metric system was a knockoff. Fahrenheit came first, and 0 was the coldest temperature consistently reproducible. Also, why would a temperature system be based on the transition points of water. The only system that makes sense is Kelvin.

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Like BC make sense? Are you sure Christ was born year 0? Are you really sure?