Zero is not zero? : funny

[-] Funkytom467@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

For distance and mass, zero means no distance and no mass.

For temperature though having none means no kinetic energy of atoms/molecules. It's absolute zero, the zero Kelvin. So the other units are the weird ones.

But since zero Kelvin isn't a phenomenon you'll ever encounter in nature, it makes Kelvin a pretty unappealing scale for everyday life.

And thus we started making shit up...

P.S. My bad Rankine also shakes hands with Kelvin about absolute zero, very demure, very mindful.

[-] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

When most of the temperature scales were made, they didn't even know yet that there was a zero, I mean, theoretically, they likely knew or assumed. But they had no way of practically measuring it yet, at the very least.

I do think that as much as it would be weird for a couple of years, it would help a lot in the long run to widely adopt a temperature scale that starts at 0.

Because honestly, the percentage of adults I come across that have no idea how temperature works or what it even is conceptually beyond just "a nice day or a bad day" or "this is the number for cooking this thing" is astonishing.

[-] Fermion@feddit.nl 4 points 1 month ago

Because honestly, the percentage of adults I come across that have no idea how temperature works

Just don't ask us to define entropy.

[-] applebusch@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I think people kind of ruined entropy with all that disorder crap. The simple conceptual explanation is that entropy represents the energy that is unavailable to do work. The more entropy a system has the less work it's capable of doing, which ultimately means the less can happen within that system. Entropy always increases globally, because anything you do is something that happens and anything that happens means less energy available to make other things happen. The complex esoteric interpretations might have some conceptual value in specific circumstances, but like a lot of science communication the rigorous scientific definitions don't get communicated, so now we have nebulous concepts like order and disorder floating around that just confuse people more than anything.

[-] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

I knew a girl years ago who thought that the temperatures on her oven must use a different scale than the temperature on her thermometer and whatnot. Because surely nothing could get to 500 degrees fahrenheit and not, like, melt the stove. It's gotta be a different scale.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 7 points 1 month ago

You should add in programming languages with zero, null, empty, and the rest.

[-] CenturionKing@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Good point 👍 concepts of "nothing" 😉

[-] accideath@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Celsius, Kelvin and Fahrenheit are clear. I suppose one of the other ones is Rankine. What’s the last one?

[-] noughtnaut@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Ohh, Rankine, thank you! I only remembered Rheamur - there you go. 😊

[-] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Glad to help each other out xD

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Unless you’re doing scientific research, absolute zero is pretty much useless, so…

[-] applebusch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

As an engineer this is a comically incorrect take. Absolute zero is useful as an absolute reference in the same way zero of anything is. Try doing anything more complex than high school physics and the practical necessity for an absolute temperature reference becomes obvious. For fucks sake they even bothered to make an imperial version. Rankine is just Fahrenheit shifted to have zero be absolute.

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Calm down Wolowitz

[+] AnarchoNoAdjective@lemmy.ml -10 points 1 month ago

Centimeters aren't metric. On a construction site if you use CM and not millimeters they use machinery to give you a wedgie.

[-] Klear@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I think you're confusing metric units with SI base units. Those are typcially the ones without any prefix (so a metre, not centimetre or milimetre). But all the prefixed versions are still metric.

Meanwhile second is the SI base unit of time, but it's not metric.

[-] Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago

Those are typcially the ones without any prefix

With the notable exception of the kg...for some inexplicable reason.

[-] AnarchoNoAdjective@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago

Thanks for that tidbit, I just think there's no reason to ever use centimeters. 1000mm = 1m, 1000m = 1km, 1000g = 1kg, 1000kg = 1T But centimeters aren't timesable/divisable by 1000 to change units thus every construction site I've worked on has banned them to avoid confusion and I agree.

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