How to learn Celsius and dress like a physicist

You're an American, and you're in Europe. You've been brought up on the inferior Fahrenheit scale (which makes no reasonable sense to any physicist), and you can't figure out what to wear. What do these numbers mean? What should you wear?

I'm not actually a physicist, but I play one on the internet. Well, not really, but I do love physics and I do understand how they think. So we're going to apply a little physics problem-solving to figure out part of the new you. After this, you'll be able to adapt to all sorts of different things.

Okay, let's be real: Fahrenheit sucks. It makes no sense. 32 for freezing water? No physicist would have ever designed something like this. Water freezing is a baseline and no physics baseline for daily use would begin with 32. It's so random. Quirky and fun, in an 18th century way, but not applicable to today's simpler standards. It might as well have curlicues and doodads a la rococo all over it.
The fact is: The only reason you "know" Fahrenheit is because you were raised with it. You've learned a scale which tells you what you should be wearing. Well, I'm going to give you a new scale which is adaptable and easy to understand. So, first, we're going to have to do a few things.

Ok, still looking at Fahrenheit, we need a baseline. A something to something set of numbers. Usually that's about 32 to 100. You know that 32 is freezing and 100 is fucking hot. Got it? That's what we'll work with because it makes the most sense. Everyone who knows Fahrenheit knows those numbers.
So, 32 to 100. Well, let's look at it as if it's an object. Somebody hands you a box named 32 to 100 and you have to figure out how to open it. Hrm…what do you do? Well, you can turn it over in your hands - remember, it's a mystery box - and you can look at it from different perspectives. Physicists do this all the time.

I know! Let's look at it upside down. Turn it around. Now it's 100 to 32. Aha! interesting. Hot becomes cold, and cold becomes hot. Any child can play that game. Ok, does that get us anywhere? Well, no, we still have work to do, but it's pretty easy now.

What do physicists like to do? Well, they like two things: Round numbers, and magnitudes. Well, the first one you can figure out because everyone knows what a round number is. The second is: everything is in a magnitude of ten. That means a scale of 0, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, etc…pretty easy, right? Just add another 0 after the last one and you've got another magnitude. 10³ is just 1 with three zeros after it. It's right there. 3. Hard to miss.
So, we have a scale of 100 to 32 and 100 represents the coldest and 32 the hottest. What do we do? We crush that down to 0. Blam! 2 orders of magnitude and you get a 0. Why? 10⁰ is 1 which, to a physicist, is 0. Physicists tend not to like 1s. 0 is hard to forget. Suddenly, your scale went from 100 to 32 all the way to the more reasonable 0 to 32. Whoa! Hey, that looks more promising!

Okay, 0 is pretty easy. That's snow weather. It's ice weather. Sounds about right. Now, 32…what can we do with a 32?
Well, I told you that physicists like round numbers so let's use that. 32 is now 40. We simply declare it. It's 40. So 0 is freezing cold, and 40 is blistering hot (like 100 Fahrenheit).

Okay, our range is 0 to 40. Easy, right?
0 = Freezing
40 = Fucking hot.

But, remember, you're trying to figure out some graduations here for your scale so you can guesstimate what to wear. Okay, let's do that.

What do physicists like to do? They like to use round numbers and, specifically, tens. So 10, 20, 30, etc…easy!

Here's your new scale:

0 = Freezing cold
10 = Still cold
20 = Nice!
30 = Nice with some hot.
40 = Fucking hot!

Bam! You've got yourself a new graduated range.
Not only that, you learned how to do it like a physicist.
Okay, what do you do if it goes under 0? Well that's still freezing. You don't really need to practically know more than that. Above 40? That's still fucking hot. It's easy to understand.
Now you can figure out how to refine that according to taste, and teach your other uneducated American friends not only how to use a Celsius scale, but also how to think like a physicist!

– N.