It can certainly be measured by the reactions you get when stating a fact to people who don't have much business in Astronomy.
You use an unscientific comparison like "17 times hotter than the sun" for reaching folks who don't understand stars, much less kelvin.
They know 70 is tee shirt weather and 350 will cook a turkey. So that is just as good a starting point when trying to impress them that something is incredibly, terribly and amazingly hot.

It is intolerant to exclude or not accomodate them.

Agreed. the un-significant figures are important. We cannot measure star surface temperature to +/- 1000 K, C or F!! I interpreted what you were saying implied the size of the error of measurement! Whoops!

Btw, I'm one of those (not-so)-young people in the world who can't even spell Fahren-whatever right

"100,255.372 Kelvin"
Thanks for converting, but I doubt very much anything beyond the 2nd digit is at all realistic. 100,000 K would have been good enough.

Sorry, You fail to see the point. There are young people in the world who don't even know about the Fahrenheit scale but only Celsius.
While it might seem like pertinacity, it is important to communicate in the language of science and units being used.. There is enough problems in learning astronomical terms than confuse it with inconsistency.

Really, it would have been better to say "the temperatures is 100,000 degrees" – avoiding the confusion. Besides, the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales are useful for earthly temperatures between boil and freezing, or perhaps some hot oven or freezer.

A temperature of 100,000 makes no sense at all, as it cannot be experienced or compared.

Kelvin is the unit in astronomy, explaining temperature in terms of "jiggliness" of atoms! – and you don't have to worry about those stupid 'degree' "o" symbols!!!

being understood or being snooty

Fascinating. What is the measure of "snooty"? If it can't be measured it doesn't exist, you know.

[Unless it's a part of a larger theory. Presumably, in the context we are discussing a theory on social communication. Or is it a theory on social perception?

FWIW, the process of being understood can presumably be measured as Shannon information. _What_ is understood is another problem. (o.O)]

@ Astrofiend:

Of course one could use natural units, anything else would be unnatural, wouldn't it? :-/ Remind me to not ask you about recipes.

But, you touch on the problem of which natural units to use. Free space units, atomic units, … A standardized measurement system has to be decided by convention. Yes, it's choice, but it's not your choice.

I henceforth request that all measurements on this site be expressed in terms of my chosen base quantities.

It's easier for cooking that way too: i.e., add 3.12261397*10^7 E .V^?2 of flour to the mix. Open the oven and cook for for 3*10^3 L.E^?1. Etc. More intuitive I think.

That said, you tell someone how hot something is in Kelvin and they often give you a blank stare. Tell them its some fantastically large number of Fahrenheit's and they say "Sweet Jesus, thats HOT!".
Its often a choice between being understood or being snooty.

[Actually, I think it's kind of sad.

It has taken humans such a long time to go from "egocentric" local units to objectively standardized. Every time I see non-SI units, outside of convenient specialty measures, I'm reminded of that long and arduous journey.]

I guess, especially in every-day-life this is a matter of familiarization. I perfectly know what it means when we have 10°C out there. This is also true for any forms of measurements. I am used to it, so as you are to the old English system.

But what ever…. have a nice, tasty meal!

Cheers LC

Happy T-day LC

The paper is now available online.

And what the heck is Fahrenheit? Curse you, Americans, no one in the whole world uses this stupid system, but you must always stand aside!

Sorry, this wanted to be said

Great article, Nancy!

What's that in Celsius or even Kelvin? (or are we returning to the bad ol' days???)

I lurrve Fermi.