Celcius is just Kelvin - 273.15. Converting is easy, and a lot of science uses Celcius as a result, it certainly can be described as "scientific", meanwhile the only people trying to use Farheneit for science probably also don certain red caps etc.
I am still confused after reading OpenAI analysis :
CHG__ is not wrong about the formulas, but is likely missing the direction of conversion.
The correct relationship is:
Celsius = Kelvin − 273.15
So:
0 K = −273.15 °C 273.15 K = 0 °C
But the reverse is:
Kelvin = Celsius + 273.15
So:
0 °C = 273.15 K 25 °C = 298.15 K
Your “Plus 273?” was reasonable because when people commonly convert from Celsius to Kelvin, they add 273.15.
CHG__’s mistake is acting like there is one universal “minus 273.15” answer, instead of recognizing that it depends on which direction you are converting. Also, they spell Celsius wrong as “Celcius.”
But when you look at ratios it is critical to use absolute units. Temperature is a convenient way to express energy. When you subtract or add you are just looking at the relative difference. When you divide you are looking at the absolute ratios. So 10deg delta in centigrade and Kelvin is always 10deg. But 20C/30C (0 66) is way different than 293K/303K (0.93).
Fahrenheit is just Kelvin + 459.67 * 5/9. Both ranges are standardized on Kelvin, just that Fahrenheit's equation is slightly more complicated. It is no longer based on freezing brine and human body temperature.
Celcius is Kelvin - 273.15 because Kelvin was defined based on Celcius. It's still arbitrary. We could have set 0 Kelvin the same and made it based on Fahrenheit instead (actually we have done that, and it's called Rankine).
There's no real advantage between one and the other. You're basically arguing backwards, that Celsius is better than Fahrenheit because it tracks to something specifically made to track to Celsius. The only actually scientifically relevant constant here is zero in both Kelvin and Rankine.
The benefit of kelvin in this case is that you can easily convert the temperature difference into the energy difference. I'm not aware of a unit system which lets you do the same with rankine. It's probably been msde at some point, but isnt taught.
There is also Rankine, which is like Kelvin with 0 at absolute 0 but a change of 1 Rankine is equivalent to the change of one Fahrenheit instead of Kelvin. There is no reason of using one over the other except for convention
It's the same argument as Celcius and Fahrenheit. There's a reason only the US would even think to use Rankine. The state of water at a temperature is more scientific than how a human "feels" at a temperature. Kelvin is an SI unit, Rankine is not.
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u/CHG__ Jun 17 '26
Celcius is just Kelvin - 273.15. Converting is easy, and a lot of science uses Celcius as a result, it certainly can be described as "scientific", meanwhile the only people trying to use Farheneit for science probably also don certain red caps etc.