Wyatt Unhinged: Why Fahrenheit and the Imperial System is Better for Everyday Life

 Welcome to a new part of Wyatt Unfiltered, which I'm calling Wyatt Unhinged. This is where I go on an ~almost~ completely unhinged rant on something that has no bearing on the current state of the world but is somehow important to me. It is most definitely a caffeine-induced, ADHD driven, "Old Man Yells at Cloud" style monologue. Good luck.

I live in the United States of America. Thus, I use the greatest measurement system ever created, the Imperial System (which includes the Fahrenheit system), commonly referred to as Freedom Fractions. We Yanks will also measure things in, but not limited to, (takes a deep breath): washing machines, Costco Hot Dogs, football fields, blue whales, coffee cups, refrigerators, laptops, and anything but the metric system. Why? Because the metric system doesn't have the same level of democracy-spreadin' kick as the Imperial System. Yes, the capitalization is intentional. But that's beside the point. Now that I have you, dear reader, all riled up, onto the actual argument.

I understand the appeal of the metric system and the Celsius scale. The metric system is a base-10 scale, and Celsius uses water to measure temperature. But that's the issue. Water's boiling point changes depending on a whole bunch of variables (ok, so the boiling point doesn't change, but the rate does, which can make it seem like it boiled at a lower temperature, and can mess up baseline measurements and a whole bunch of other stuff). Time is a base-60 scale (60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour), and that doesn't work super nicely with a base-10 measurement system.

Now I will concede, for science, that metric and Celsius are better. Easier to calculate, actually based around what is being studied, etc. But the average human doesn't actively think about the physics and chemistry in everyday life. They don't go "Oh, this train is moving at 25 meters per second, and thus the angular rotation of the wheel is blah blah blah, and the friction is X, and thus the heat produced is Y degrees Celsius". They don't. They go, "Oh, the train is moving fast". And if they do think about the friction creating heat, they go, "The tracks must be hot from all that friction". Nobody, unless you're a scientist or in a class about science, thinks about the exact measurements.

Going back to Celsius being based on water, 0 degrees Celsius is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. If that's the temperature outside, I'm wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a medium jacket! Meanwhile, 100 degrees Celsius is a whopping 212 degrees Fahrenheit! That's really hot! But what about 100 degrees Fahrenheit? 37 degrees Celsius. Fahrenheit is based on humans. It's designed for humans, not science. Celsius is designed for science. And don't get me started on Kelvin. Just don't. When I hear 20 degrees, I (an American) think, "Ok, so it's cold out". 90 degrees is "It's hot out". Meanwhile, those two temperatures in Celsius are hot and really hot. TL;DR: Fahrenheit=humanity, Celsius=science.

Now let's get into measurement. While metric, which is base-10, is easier to calculate, making it work with time, which is base-60, can get a little funky. Meanwhile, the Imperial System is base-12, which works a lot better with base-60, since 12 times 5 equals 60. See where I'm going? If I'm going 60 MPH, I know I'm going a mile a minute. So, when I need to figure out how long it will take me to get somewhere while I'm driving and I don't have my government-issue spyware, I mean, cell phone, I can just figure out how fast I'm going by looking at the speedometer, looking for a sign with how far until I reach the city I'm going to, do some quick math in my head, and because base-12 and base-60 work pretty nicely together, I can figure out how early or late I'm going to be. Not on time, just early or late. While it is a similar process for Km/hr, it's not even for 100 Km/hr. How many Kilometers per minute is 100 Km/hr? ~16 Km/min. Not as easy to calculate. So, while metric will be better for science, where base-10 is preferred, Imperial is best for everyday use.

Rant over.