Kelvin and degrees Celsius are friends, though.
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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Not according to the meme. 0 K is -273(.15) C.
I think one is supposed to be radians, not sure why they both have the ° though, cause radians aren’t a degree. Should be just R the way Kelvin is just K.
It is clearly the Rankine scale, which is an absolute temperature scale just like Kelvin. Which means that 0 K and 0 °R is exactly the same.
I know the F C and K, but what are the others?
R is to F what K is to C. Ra is used sometimes because there are other R meanings.
From John Bazell “In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.”
I was in a situation similar to this one in real life: having to adjust the salt level in a pool.
In metric:
The pool is 8*4 m long and 2m deep on average, the current salt level is 2g/l and the salt comes in 20kg bags.
How many bags of salts do I need to pour in the pool to adjust the salt level to at least 3g/l ?
Answer:
! The pool contains 8m4m2m= 64m³ or 64000l of water, I need an extra 1g/l of salt per litres so 64000l*1g/l = 64000g or 64 kg. So with 4 bags I'll have enough salt.
In imperial:
The pool is 20*10ft long and 5ft deep on average, the current salt level is 2000ppm and the salt comes in 40lbs bags.
How many bags of salts do I need to pour in the pool to adjust the salt level to at least 3000ppm?
Answer:
! I'm just gonna drive to the store with my truck to pick up 2 bags at the time and see if it's enough, no way I'm doing the calculation.
Home pools here are almost never saltwater.
We simply add chlorine tabs until the pH is the correct color on the strips. Even if we knew it would be 62.4 lbs of salt, it's not like you can buy a 62.4 lb bag of salt.
But yeah, it is a lot harder to do applied math in the US, which is why science here went metric :)
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(6 replies)
0 Kelvin = 0 Rankine
Also, both °R and °Ra are Rankine. So 3 of the 5 people in the bottom picture also agree.
I think none of K, R, and Ra may be pointing at each other.
Hmm. To my eye, K is obviously pointing at either R or Ra (and F), R has to be pointing at Ra (and K or F), and Ra is pointing at R or K (and C).
And the other two can shake at -40
They shake under the table, but try to keep up appearances.
there's a whole host of temperature scales, some of which look similar, some look different, some scale the same at the same temperature difference but have different zeroes, and at least one works backwards. Thank goodness there's only three you're likely to see in the wild these days, I'd hate to have to keep in mind whether or not those degrees are not Celsius or Fahreheit, but... idk, Newton? Réamur? Rømer? Delisle?
More like only 4 than 3, at least in the us, I unfortunately run into Rankine at my job on occasion.
Welp, it is like Kelvin, just with Fahrenheit step.
Use molecular wiggles mw
Would be better ordered like F° C° K° R°
You mean K° F° C° R°epeat
-40C = -40F
Also 0lbs does not equal 0kg when there’s no gravity.
huh?
Mass doesnt change with gravity
Typically, lbs is not mass, it's weight/force.
isn't that lbf?
The pund itself is defined as 0.45359237 Kg
Lbs can be lbf or lbm, but usually is referring to lbf, which is 0.4536 kg at 1g.
when comparing to kg I will assume the mass unit, since comparing a mass value to a force has no meaning.
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Kelvin is objectively the most accurate. Celsius fans cope.
Er... every system of measurement is accurate, tautologically.
0°F = 0°F because 0°F = 0°F, by definition.
Only Kelvin is valid thermodynamically because thermodynamics often needs absolute temperature for the math to work out right. Rankine is only for masochistic idiots who like fucking up their math and having extra stupid constants all over the place to compensate for their shitty unit system.
Perhaps, but that was not the statement. The statement was:
Kelvin is objectively the most accurate.
Functionally, a measurement system cannot be inaccurate. You might define a new temperature measurement in blargs, and define that the room you're in right now is 1 blarg. It is now an accurate statement to say that the room is 1 blarg. At the time of measurement, it is not possible for that statement to be inaccurate.
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(5 replies)
Depends on your measuring tool. A thermometer that measures in K but has an error margin of +2 to -2 K is less accurate than a thermometer that measures in F and has an error margin van -0.1 and +0.1 F
It's a nice day today. Can't be more than 300 degrees
I'm not so sure
For some reason my brain dropped the 'L'.
Sitting here wondering how Kevin does it...
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