Why do Americans use Fahrenheit? - Big Questions - (Ep. 37)

Hi, I'm Craig. I'm of average height. I guess you could say I'm fair in height

And this is Mental Floss on YouTube. Today I'm going to answer Martin Prince's big question. Why do Americans use Fahrenheit? I know some of you hate it when I don't use Celsius

So today I'm going to spend an entire video talking about Fahrenheit. Let's get started. First, I'm going to give you a little history of Fahrenheit and Celsius

So, the Fahrenheit scale was developed by a German man named Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724

It's believed that he originally had zero degrees being the temperature of ice-cold saltwater

32 degrees as ice water, and 96 degrees as body temperature. Over time, the scale shifted a little, but it was used in English-speaking countries for centuries

The Celsius scale was developed in 1744. It's named for a Swedish astronomer, Anders Celsius, who created a scale in which zero degrees was the boiling point of water

and 100 degrees was the freezing point. What? That's the reverse! Well, the modern Celsius scale was the opposite of that

In most English-speaking countries, Fahrenheit was used up until the 1960s. Then all those places, besides the US, began to switch over to Celsius and the metric system

Those crazy freewheeling metric 60s. Most had been trying to switch to the metric system since the 1800s, because it obviously

made more sense. But there was some hesitation, especially when reporting weather. A 2006 article by the London newspaper, The Times, claimed that negative 6 degrees Celsius

sounds colder than 21 degrees Fahrenheit, and 94 degrees Fahrenheit sounds more impressive

than 34 degrees Celsius You want to be impressed by your temperatures you know So why doesn the US switch over Well we tried Like in 1875 the US joined the Meter Convention which was a treaty signed by 17 nations

Those nations developed a standardized metric system, which started with measurements of mass and length, but eventually included temperature

Over the course of the next few decades, it seemed like the US would definitely switch over to metric

And we did. And now it's metric everywhere. Happy ending. Not true

The UK and Canada did switch in the 60s, so why didn't we? In 1975, Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act

act claimed that metric was quote, the preferred system of weights and measures for United

States trade and commerce. It also stated that the government would quote, coordinate

and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States. The government

agency USMB, or USMB, or United States Metric Board, was created soon after the act was

passed, but the public still wasn't convinced. And the board didn't have enough power to force the country to switch over. Eventually, Ronald Reagan's administration shut down the

USMB in 1982. There's still some traction, and many people in the US would like to switch

to metric, but it's been a slow process and many remain resistant. And weirdly, you still see Fahrenheit crop up in scientific journals and engineering

This is for one main reason, the degrees are smaller so you can get twice the level of precision before needing decimals

And then there's a secondary reason, America. Rah. Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which was made with the help of all these

nice Celsiuses. If you have a big question of your own that you'd like answered, leave it below in the comments

See you next week. That one might be a Fahrenheit, actually