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Making Metric Meaningful

Celsius Temperatures

Some things are made more difficult than they need to be. "Conversion" of temperatures between Farenheight and Metric is one of those things.

For people in the US, Fahrenheit is the standard degree used for measuring temperatures. Over the years, we have gotten used to it. Celsius is used pretty much everywhere else.

Converting Temperatures

Conversion MUST be difficult, right?

Well, no. No formulas to memorize.

For practical purposes, there are really only four temperatures which matter unless you are doing tricky stuff.

Think "comfort" and be comfortable with metric temperatures.

30 degrees Celsius is HOT. So is 86° Fahrenheit.

20° Celsius is ROOM temperature.

10° Celsius is CHILLY so wear a sweater.

0° (zero) is FREEZING so wear a coat.

If you focus on those four, everything else is in-between. Going up from 20 is getting hotter.

Going down from 10 is getting downright cold.

If you decide you want to be a scientist or a cook,then add one more Celsius temperature to your simple set. 100° Celsius is when pure water boils. With that you can cook an egg, but please do not stick your finger in the water to see how hot it is!

And if you need exact Celsius temps, use a Celsius thermometer

This information is licensed for sharing, CC-BY. Feel free to use, rework and reshare. Please include mention of the source here. There is also a print-friendly pdf version. Right click the link to download.

Update: Some embarrassing misspellings were cleaned up in 2016. Special apologies to the decendents of Herr Fahrenheit.