I just came back from Europe, where, like almost everywhere else in the world, temperature is measured in degrees Celcius. The U.S. and its territories still use Fahrenheit, a distinction shared only with the Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands and Palau.
I hadn’t really appreciated the superiority of Celcius until I had the pleasure this past week of using a European shower that lets you press a button to increase or decrease the temperature in incrments of one degreee Celcius. In such situations you really come to appreciate the difference.
The shower starts off at 38oC, a fine temperature that many will enjoy. After clicking up to 41oC, I found my perfect shower. But here’s the thing: Every increment feels unique and useful. A 40oC shower feels clearly distinct from a 39oC shower, and so forth.
In Fahrenheits the quantum is too small. I don’t think I would be able to tell the difference between, say a 102
After this experience, I am sold on the superiority of Celcius. Now if we could just get the U.S. to switch from the English system to the Metric system. In the U.K. they converted decades ago, and over there in London they actually are English.