30°C is 303 Kelvin. Half of that is 151 Kelvin, which translates into a fairly mild -122°C!
Takes out hockey stick
New strategy to prevent global warming: just freeze all of the CO2 out of the air!
Careful, half of what, kelvin?
That is indeed the joke.
I use this as an example for interval vs ratio; you can’t halve Celsius because it’s an interval scale where zero is arbitrary. Kelvin is ratio as it has an absolute zero-- you very much can halve it and doom near the entire planet next summer
arguably setting zero to absolute zero is just as arbitrary
How so? Absolute zero is the coldest possible temperature, it’s physically impossible for an object to be colder. Saying that’s arbitrary is like saying it’s arbitrary to define 0 m/s as not moving.
It’s still assuming a scale. It’s actually worse because the scale is implied by context.
What? What context? The scale is the same as Celsius which is derived from the properties of water. And 0K is when there is absolutely no heat energy in the thing being measured. There is no context where this is not the case.
The one where a human is speaking in English and referring to a season and the temperature is more than significant context. I hope this helped you; it seems that you’re one of those people who lack the capacity to infer from available data.
People don’t use Kelvin when referring to seasons. Sure, there’s plenty of ambiguity if someone says it’s 32° out without specifying the units, and you can infer from context, but that has nothing to do with Kelvin starting at absolute zero. Saying “degrees” immediately rules out Kelvin as a unit.
Being condescending actually doesn’t help a conversation.
Zero kelvin is very contextually useful. Put very simply it literally relates to the motion of atoms. At zero, they move zero.
The scale doesn’t matter, double is always double. No matter if expressed in 1m is half of 2m, or 3ft is half of 6ft. Same is true for temperature, als long as the zero point is fixed.
Scale always matters, it is the anchor point for shared communication.
Double is a scale in itself, it assumes the first thing as 1 and the second thing as 2. The are no other scales needed when I say something is double the other thing. The other thing is the scale here.
Reminds me of a time one of my friends was happy that it was going to warm up and said something like “it’s going to be twice as warm tomorrow”. It was going from maybe 20F to 40F or something.
That led to an interesting discussion.
Obviously we’d all die but I wonder how exactly. This would make a good question for Randall Munroe.
90 F to Kelvin, halved and converted back, is approximately -190.
It’s difficult to find data on what exposure to that temperature would do, the threshold for an extreme cold warning (meaning absolutely do not go outside without heavy protection unless you want necrotic frostbite) is about 150 F warmer than that.
Granted. Celsius now range from 0 to 50
Edit: … or whatever unit you prefer. It’s still the same
Oh, it’s way better than the alternative interpretation.
Half Kelvins?
30°C is 303.15K, half 151.575K is a nice and chilly -121.575°C lower than any recorded temp on earth by about 21°C. When working with monkeys paw or genies always declare your units and reference frames.
wdym range from 0 to 50?
0 is the freezing point of water 50 is the boiling point.
If it’s 30°c outside, it will be only be 15 after the wish, thus fit what the character said
sure but you shouldn’t take halves on a scale with an arbitrary 0
True, but my joke wasn’t meant to be scientifically accurate at all. We have a genie here. They don’t care about science. Apart from monkey paw science
Could someone please explain?
Let’s say the summer average is 30⁰C or 303.15 Kelvin
The absolute coldest possible temperature is -273.15⁰C, or 0K.
Halfway between absolute zero and 30⁰C/303.15K is somewhere around -121⁰C/152K
So if it were half as hot in the summer, it would be colder than ever recorded on earth.
In short, you don’t want to use a temperature scale with an arbitrary starting point for doing calculations like this. The freezing point of water is no more or less arbitrary than the freezing point of oxygen or sodium or anything else. It’s just one that’s somewhat useful for everyday use. When handling calculations for multiplying temperature, you want an absolute scale like Kelvin.
Or Rankine if you’re that kind of pervert.
What makes Kelvin absolute, and why is Celsius “wobbly”?
I failed physics in high school
0 K is like when there is 0 heat basically, while celsius isn’t. Imagine a unit for distance called “goob” where 0 goobs is 100 m and 1 goob is 115 m. In that case the goob unit would behave differently than a meter when you multiply and divide because 0 of the units don’t actually correspond to “nothing” in a physical sense. That’s exactly how the Celsius scale is, with zero being placed somewhere arbitrarily, not at a physical zero.
absolute scales are still arbitrary. you would probably want to use a scale that measures “perceived heat” which is different than average kinetic energy
Kelvin is just our word for it, but that is the point of “no heat”. It isn’t arbitrary, there is no “negative kelvin” just like you cannot make something colder than absolute zero.
So if you take the difference between “coldest possible temp” and “average summer temp”, then slice it in half, you’re getting temperatures that would kill most life on earth.
just because it has a reason doesn’t make it not arbitrary. you can ultimately come up with a reason for all arbitrary decisions
Is there a way to distinguish between arbitrary and non-arbitrary? Or is literally everything ever arbitrary?
literally every definition ever is arbitrary
Do you not understand what the word arbitrary means?…
maybe you’re the one who doesn’t understand the ramifications of its meaning
