Why do temperature get as high as billion degrees but only as low as -270 degrees?
In: 10036
Because degrees are stupid. Let’s ask a different question: why does length get as high as trillions of light years but only as low as 0? And… that’s a silly question, isn’t it? Same with mass: why does mass get as high as 10^52 kg but only as low as 0? Again, silly question. Same thing with temperature: why does temperature get to billions of kelvins but only as low as 0?
Except that temperature is usually measured in these stupid units called degrees. Imagine a unit of length such that 273.15 meters was 0 of this unit, and 100 of this unit was 373.15 meters. That would be stupid, right? 0 units isn’t actually 0 length! Well, that’s how we do temperature. 0 degrees is not actually 0 temperature. 0 temperature is called absolute zero, but for historical reasons, we have this unit called degrees such that a temperature of 0 is actually –273.15 of these degrees. So 20 degrees is not twice as hot as 10 degrees. Not even close. Because 10 degrees is actually 283.15 K, and 20 degrees is actually 293.15 K, so their ratio is 293.15/283.15, not 2/1. But this challenges the way we normally assume things about math, because the 0 isn’t actually the zero. It makes sense that you can’t really have negative temperature, except we have these stupid units where it *can* be negative.
Of course, when the Celsius scale was invented, people didn’t know about absolute zero. That’s why you have similar scales like Fahrenheit. There was even a scale that counted *down* as you got hotter. People didn’t know what temperature actually was: the average kinetic energy of the particles in an object. That energy could be 0 in theory, but it certainly can’t be negative! But they didn’t know that at the time.
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