Eli5 Why 80 degree Celsius is not four times as hot as 20 degrees celsius?
In: 0
Because 0 degrees Celsius is not “zero temperature”.
The actual coldest possible temperature is -273 Celsius (yes I’m ignoring the decimals on this number).
As an example, -233 Celsius is 40 degrees warmer than zero temp, and -253 Celsius is 20 degrees warmer than zero temp, so -233 is twice as hot as -253.
This scale, with 0 = actual zero temperature is called Kelvin, and it’s used in science because twice as big a number *does* mean twice as hot.
With Celsius, the degrees are the same size, we just chose to pick 273 Kelvin = 0 Celsius because:
1. It gives nice small workable numbers in the range of temps humans often work with (rather than every temp number you encounter in daily life being in the hundreds), and
2. It’s repeatable and reproducible. 0 Celsius is the freezing point of water, so even long ago all you needed was a bowl of ice water and anyone can calibrate temperatures and thermometers to exactly 0 C.
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