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<blockquote data-quote="LazarusLong42" data-source="post: 1379353" data-attributes="member: 9620">So does Fahrenheit.&nbsp; Those of us who dealt with engineering school learned all about degrees Rankine, which has Fahrenheit-scaled degrees plotted with zero equal to absolute zero (around -460 °F).Goodness, though, some of the questions that have been asked intrigue me, partially because they're some of the few things I can actually feel knowledgeable about around here.&nbsp; So:(1)&nbsp; ALL measurement scales are arbitrary.&nbsp; It's unfortunate, but necessary.&nbsp; Without some degree of arbitrariness, we would all have different definitions of inches, meters, pounds, and kilograms.Remember that the original definition of &quot;one meter&quot; was &quot;one ten-millionth of the distance measured on the Earth's surface from the north pole to the equator, through Greenwich, England.&quot;&nbsp; &nbsp; Personally, I think &quot;the distance light travels in 1/299792458 of one second&quot; is slightly less arbitrary, but it's arbitrary nonetheless.(2)&nbsp; Many measurement systems were derived from societies that, for one reason or another, did not use base 10.&nbsp; The number we call a &quot;dozen&quot; shows up as the inches to feet conversion, the (original, and still used in Troy measurement) ounces to pounds conversion, and the shillings to pence conversion.&nbsp; Similarly, our day is broken up using base twelve--into two spans (day, and night) of 24 hours each.&nbsp; But from there, it's broken up in base 60--something we got from the Babylonians through the Greeks.(3)One centimeter:&nbsp; The width of a human pinky.One meter:&nbsp; The distance from the centerline of the body tot he tip of an outstretched arm.And so forth... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />(4)And yet the metric system is partially based around water.&nbsp; One liter of water masses one kilogram.&nbsp; 99% of chemistry is done in aqueous solution; a system based partially off of water makes entirely perfect sense.&nbsp; (To us chemists, at least...)And... I've rambled long enough.&nbsp; But it passes the time at work. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="LazarusLong42, post: 1379353, member: 9620"] So does Fahrenheit. Those of us who dealt with engineering school learned all about degrees Rankine, which has Fahrenheit-scaled degrees plotted with zero equal to absolute zero (around -460 °F). Goodness, though, some of the questions that have been asked intrigue me, partially because they're some of the few things I can actually feel knowledgeable about around here. So: (1) ALL measurement scales are arbitrary. It's unfortunate, but necessary. Without some degree of arbitrariness, we would all have different definitions of inches, meters, pounds, and kilograms. Remember that the original definition of "one meter" was "one ten-millionth of the distance measured on the Earth's surface from the north pole to the equator, through Greenwich, England." Personally, I think "the distance light travels in 1/299792458 of one second" is slightly less arbitrary, but it's arbitrary nonetheless. (2) Many measurement systems were derived from societies that, for one reason or another, did not use base 10. The number we call a "dozen" shows up as the inches to feet conversion, the (original, and still used in Troy measurement) ounces to pounds conversion, and the shillings to pence conversion. Similarly, our day is broken up using base twelve--into two spans (day, and night) of 24 hours each. But from there, it's broken up in base 60--something we got from the Babylonians through the Greeks. (3) One centimeter: The width of a human pinky. One meter: The distance from the centerline of the body tot he tip of an outstretched arm. And so forth... :) (4) And yet the metric system is partially based around water. One liter of water masses one kilogram. 99% of chemistry is done in aqueous solution; a system based partially off of water makes entirely perfect sense. (To us chemists, at least...) And... I've rambled long enough. But it passes the time at work. :) [/QUOTE]

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