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Show HN: Degrees What?

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Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#121
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lasers often have negative temperatures. It's not that weird

Okay, can we use it for cooling like in Sundiver by David Brin[0], where people (IIRC) used lasers to keep themselves cool while, as per title, diving their ship into the Sun? -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiver

No, not like that. Sundiver makes a mockery of the second law of thermodynamics.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#122
post #88

For those who didn't know, Kelvin is already its own measurement. Think of it like on the same level as "meters" or "miles". You wouldn't say "500 degrees Kelvin", like you would 't say "50 amounts of meters". This is because Kelvin, like meters/miles, are already a measurement of some physical feature, in this case of kinetic energy of the particles. The word "degrees", on the other hand, does not represent a meanin…

I'd contest that Kelvins, being the same as centigrade degrees but counting from absolute zero, have a case for being called degrees too.

On a side note, it would be awesome if all temperatures were in Kelvins.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#123
post #88

For those who didn't know, Kelvin is already its own measurement. Think of it like on the same level as "meters" or "miles". You wouldn't say "500 degrees Kelvin", like you would 't say "50 amounts of meters". This is because Kelvin, like meters/miles, are already a measurement of some physical feature, in this case of kinetic energy of the particles. The word "degrees", on the other hand, does not represent a meanin…

I'd contest that Kelvins, being the same as centigrade degrees but counting from absolute zero, have a case for being called degrees too. On a side note, it would be awesome if all temperatures were in Kelvins.

I guess the difference is more based on subtle historic reasons than strong definitions? Not sure on that one. I do know that Kelvins are based on an absolute zero value, i.e. it's impossible to achieve a lower than 0 Kelvin temperature in the Universe, while Celsius in comparison feels like a very arbitrary choice being based on stuff that happen to something (water) at some places of the universe (1 atm of pressure).

> On a side note, it would be awesome if all temperatures were in Kelvins

You have my unconditional vote on that one! :-D

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