Temperature scales
The weather app on your cell phone in Chicago says it is 28 °F outside. Your science teacher records the temperature in the lab in degrees Celsius. A physicist writes it in kelvin. It is the same quantity — how hot or cold something is, which depends on how fast the particles in a substance are moving — measured with three different scales. Knowing how to convert from one to another is as useful as knowing that a kilometer is 1,000 meters. By the end of this page you will be able to tell how cold that Chicago day really is in Celsius and kelvin.
The three temperature scales
You dip a thermometer into a glass of water with crushed ice and it reads $0$, but a Fahrenheit thermometer would read $32$ and in a physics laboratory they would record $273$: how can the same phenomenon be measured with three such different values?
In Canada, the weather forecast gives the temperature in degrees Celsius, but a friend from the United States gives it to you in degrees Fahrenheit. What is a…
In Canada, the weather forecast gives the temperature in degrees Celsius, but a friend from the United States gives it to you in degrees Fahrenheit. What is a temperature scale? Name the three scales you know and write the unit symbol for each.
What is the International System unit for temperature, used in science? And which one do we use in daily life in the United States? Give an example of each.
What is the International System unit for temperature, used in science? And which one do we use in daily life in the United States? Give an example of each.
From Celsius to Kelvin
At what temperature, in degrees Celsius, does water freeze? And at what temperature does it boil at sea level? Express both values in kelvins as well.
At what temperature, in degrees Celsius, does water freeze? And at what temperature does it boil at sea level? Express both values in kelvins as well.
Degrees Fahrenheit
You are helping bake chocolate chip cookies for the school bake sale and the recipe says to preheat the oven to $350\ ^\circ\text{F}$. Your lab thermometer only reads in Celsius: how many degrees Celsius is that temperature really? We will come back to this at the end of the section.