Thursday, February 10, 2005
A Matter of Degree
It is not surprising that common parlance is incorrect at times. I fell for it in the earlier post "Hot Bottoms."
As pointed out by anonymous (aka Rees; aka Chris) the proper nomenclature on the Kelvin Scale is somewhat different than other scales with which we most often work. I actually made two errors when referring to the Absolute temperature on Saturn. Firstly, one does not use the term or symbol for degrees. The actual temperature on Saturn's bottom is about 100K.
The reference to 6 or 7 degrees warmer would be correct if we refer to kelvin with a small "k." While I knew the former before, the latter is news to me. See the US Metric Association's page for more information.
As pointed out by anonymous (aka Rees; aka Chris) the proper nomenclature on the Kelvin Scale is somewhat different than other scales with which we most often work. I actually made two errors when referring to the Absolute temperature on Saturn. Firstly, one does not use the term or symbol for degrees. The actual temperature on Saturn's bottom is about 100K.
The reference to 6 or 7 degrees warmer would be correct if we refer to kelvin with a small "k." While I knew the former before, the latter is news to me. See the US Metric Association's page for more information.
