Metrology

Water freezes at 0 °C. The frost shown here is at -17 °C.

Temperature plays an important role in almost all fields of science, including physics, geology, chemistry, and biology.

Many physical properties of materials including the phase (solid, liquid, gaseous or plasma), density, solubility, vapor pressure, and electrical conductivity depend on the temperature. Temperature also plays an important role in determining the rate and extent to which chemical reactions occur. This is one reason why the human body has several elaborate mechanisms for maintaining the temperature at 37 °C, since temperatures only a few degrees higher can result in harmful reactions with serious consequences. Temperature also controls the type and quantity of thermal radiation emitted from a surface. One application of this effect is the incandescent light bulb, in which a tungsten filament is electrically heated to a temperature at which significant quantities of visible light are emitted.

Metrology

Main article: Temperature measurement

See also: Timeline of temperature and pressure measurement technology, International Temperature Scale of 1990, and Comparison of temperature scales

Temperature measurement using modern scientific thermometers and temperature scales goes back at least as far as the early 18th century, when Gabriel Fahrenheit adapted a thermometer (switching to mercury) and a scale both developed by Ole Christensen Rømer. Fahrenheit's scale is still in use in the USA, with the Celsius scale in use in the rest of the world and the Kelvin scale.

Units

The basic unit of temperature (symbol: T) in the International System of Units (SI) is the kelvin (Symbol: K). The kelvin and Celsius scales are, by international agreement, defined by two points: absolute zero, and the triple point of Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (water specially prepared with a specified blend of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes). Absolute zero is defined as being precisely 0 K and −273.15 °C. Absolute zero is where all kinetic motion in the particles comprising matter ceases and they are at complete rest in the “classic” (non-quantum mechanical) sense (the relationship between temperature and average kinetic energy is restricted to gases, therefore, it does not apply to temperatures near absolute zero. So zero temperature does not mean that everything is at rest. It means, rather, that all atoms and molecules are in the ground state)^[2]. At absolute zero, matter contains no thermal energy. Also, the triple point of water is defined as being precisely 273.16 K and 0.01 °C. This definition does three things: 1) it fixes the magnitude of the kelvin unit as being precisely 1 part in 273.16 parts the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water; 2) it establishes that one kelvin has precisely the same magnitude as a one degree increment on the Celsius scale; and 3) it establishes the difference between the two scales’ null points as being precisely 273.15 kelvins (0 K = −273.15 °C and 273.16 K = 0.01 °C). Formulas for converting from these defining units of temperature to other scales can be found at Temperature conversion formulas.

In the field of plasma physics, because of the high temperatures encountered and the electromagnetic nature of the phenomena involved, it is customary to express temperature in electronvolts (eV) or kiloelectronvolts (keV), where 1 eV = 11,605 K. In the study of QCD matter one routinely meets temperatures of the order of a few hundred MeV, equivalent to about 10¹² K.

For everyday applications, it's very often convenient to use the Celsius scale, in which 0 °C corresponds to the temperature at which water freezes and 100 °C corresponds to the boiling point of water at sea level. In this scale a temperature difference of 1 degree is the same as a 1 K temperature difference, so the scale is essentially the same as the Kelvin scale, but offset by the temperature at which water freezes (273.15 K). Thus the following equation can be used to convert from degrees Celsius to kelvins.

In the United States, the Fahrenheit scale is widely used. On this scale the freezing point of water corresponds to 32 °F and the boiling point to 212 °F. The following conversion formulas may be used to convert between Fahrenheit (F) and Celsius (C) temperature values:

and .

See temperature conversion formulas for conversions between most temperature scales.

Negative temperature

Main article: Negative temperature

In the macroscopic sense relevant to most people, a negative temperature is one below the zero-point of the measurement system used. For example, a temperature of 100 K is equivalent to −173.15 °C. Temperatures of macroscopic systems may have negative values in the Celsius and Fahrenheit, but not in the Kelvin or Rankine scales.

However, for some systems and specific definitions of temperature, it is possible to obtain a negative temperature, which is numerically less than absolute zero. However, a system with a negative temperature is not colder than absolute zero, but rather it is, in a sense, hotter than infinite temperature.^[3] Negative temperature is "hotter" because, when brought into contact with a system at a positive temperature, energy will be transferred from the negative temperature system to the positive temperature system.