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

Well, if your question is just for temperature, there is no negative of it. We just have units that are relative at some temperature and someone decided it started from at some point. If the temperature drop from that is negative in that unit (F or C). In fact, a negative temperature in celsius may be positive in farengheit (sorry if bad spell) For that reason we have Kelvins. Kelvin is a unit of meassure that starts from the absolute 0 which is the minimun temperature posible with no heat. There is no negative kelvins.