Eli5: I’m trying to find the best way to word this but how does one measure “negative degrees”, like in temperature, like how do you quantify the absence of something that isn’t tangible?

Question

Eli5: I’m trying to find the best way to word this but how does one measure “negative degrees”, like in temperature, like how do you quantify the absence of something that isn’t tangible?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Another way of looking at it is with left and right. Pick a random point. Everything left of that is left and everything right of that is right. You can pick any given point to do that with.

Instead of left and right, temperature does the same with with zero. Pick any random temperature and call that zero. Anything colder than that is negative and everything warmer is positive. You are just counting in opposite directions.

Same thing with dates. You can look at 2000 BC for example, as -1999 AD if you like. There isn’t a year zero, so that’s why it’s off by one.