Centigrade, Fahrenheit & Chirps

Surprised we are not using Kelvin by now...

Brian

Kelvin has the same resolution and is based on "Centigrade" but has an awkward offset back to absolute zero (273.15). This is fine for scientific and engineering usage but nonsensical for the average Joe.

For everyday use having a unit based on familiar reference points (boiling (100) and freezing (0) points of water under normal temperature and pressure) is much more sensible.

As a point of note "Centigrade" is an old unit and has been replaced officially by "Celsius". In fact the BBC changed to using Celsius back in

Andy

Who said cricket was dumb?

Indeed, if there is no play, you can be sure its raining, and the historical rainfall is highly correlated to the incidence of drawn county matches.

says who? with what authority? Both are valid terms IRL

NT

Celsius is the internationally agreed term, because it is unambiguous. Centigrade has different meanings in different languages and technically Fahrenheit is also a centigrade scale, in that its fixed points were zero - the freezing point of concentrated brine - and 100 - blood temperature. There is a theory that a prevalence of low level infections meant that, in the time of Fahrenheit, the average blood temperature really was 100F.

Colin Bignell

They mean the same thing so why change the word? At least they are similar, for cycles per second ie frequency, we lost cycles in favour of Hertz, and I bet the van company paid the eu to do that!

Brian

The snag with the basing of temperature on boiling and freezing is just what you said, they vary according the air pressure, so are not constant. Presumably, absolute zero is. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you tried to go below absolute zero?

is it a bit like the speed of light measured in the local framework, ie cannot change?

Brian

absolutely!

That's why Standards use a specific Temperature and Pressure, so the conditions are repeatable.

You've not been following Adams apprentice thread, have you?

That's still a motion, at absolute zero the molecules stop moving which means they have zero energy so don;t exist is how I've understood it. ( or is it that after drinking a litre of absolute vodka I have zero movement ;-)

Even the coldest places in the universe are above absolute zero.