• ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Both are equally arbitrary. You just have to know a handful of temperatures that you use in your day to day life either way.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Hum… Around here water boils at ~96°C (some labs measure that). And it seems to not freeze at 0°C anywhere on Earth, as it’s never pure water, with never an homogeneous freezing point.

        It is repeatable, it’s not very arbitrary, but “intuitive” doesn’t apply in any way.

        • mypasswordistaco@iusearchlinux.fyi
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          8 months ago

          You must be at altitude. That definitely makes a difference for the boiling point, but of course water freezes at 0. Impurities that you’ll encounter in tap water, for example, will not have a large effect on freezing point.

          Even if it was different by a few degrees, how does that make the scale any less intuitive?