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

There are no “negative degrees”. There is the lowest point you can go and everything goes up from there. Metric and imperial systems just count from a set point that works for them. Absolute zero is -273C or -459F. Kelvin is a scale that starts at absolute zero as 0K and goes up in degrees C (so 273K is the same as 0 degrees C)