If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow....

Chris OConnor · Sun Sep 06, 2009 2:38 am

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

life_wo_frank · Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:43 am

Mathematically speaking, zero.

Shannon

GreyIxia · Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:55 pm

-2 degrees?

geo · Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:44 pm

Is it zero degrees celsius or fahrenheit?

Suzanne · Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:35 am

Chris OConnor wrote:


	Quote: If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

It's zero degrees today, but tomorrow it's twice as cold. The question does not ask what the degree will be in either celsius or fahrenheit. The question asks simply, how cold will it be.

Cold, is subjective. Someone living in Florida who vacations in Alaska where it is 0 degrees may feel twice as cold as the Alaskan natives for instance.

geo · Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:00 pm


	Suzanne wrote: It's zero degrees today, but tomorrow it's twice as cold. The question does not ask what the degree will be in either celsius or fahrenheit. The question asks simply, how cold will it be. Cold, is subjective. Someone living in Florida who vacations in Alaska where it is 0 degrees may feel twice as cold as the Alaskan natives for instance.

Cold is subjective, but on the thermometer it's a precise measurement. Therefore, it should be possible to determine what twice as cold or twice as hot of a specific temperature is. What's twice as hot as 20 degrees? Isn't it 40 degrees? But no maybe that doesn't quite make sense. I'm pretty flummoxed about how to go about this. I'm going to just google it sooner or later. :laugh:

geo · Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:14 pm

Okay, I googled it.

This is what comes up in Wikianswers and it makes about as much sense as anything else I've seen.

Short answer there is no such thing as twice as cold.


	wikianswers wrote: Double the coldness" is meaningless. "Cold" is merely a lack of heat. Temperature is a measure of heat, not cold. Moreover, even if you could measure "coldness", you would have to use some unit of measurement that starts at zero when there is no coldness, and increases as it gets colder (the opposite of temperature). I'm not talking about Kelvin, because the zero on the Kelvin scale is set where there is no heat, not where there is no coldness. Presumably, the point of "zero coldness" would be the point at which the highest possible temperature is obtained, and therefore there is no coldness at all. But theoretically, there is no maximum temperature, and therefore no point of "zero coldness". But, even if you could establish what the maximum possible temperature (and therefore the zero point on your "coldness" scale) was, it would be so high that doubling coldness would result in a temperature of less than absolute zero, which is impossible. For example, even if the maximum possible temperature was as low as 600 degrees F (and we know that the average star burns many, many times hotter than that), 600 degrees F is approximately 316 degrees C, or 589 K. If you set your "zero coldness" at this point, 589 K, and increased your coldness measure by 1 for every 1 degree decrease in K, your coldness measurement would reach 316 at 0 degrees C. If you double this, you have a coldness measurement of 632, which equates to a Kelvin temperature of -43. But negative Kelvin temperatures do not exist. QED - there is no such thing as "twice as cold".

johnson1010 · Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:41 pm

the question only makes sense if we all agree on a zero mark.

Suzanne · Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:32 pm

Johnson1010 wrote:


	Quote: the question only makes sense if we all agree on a zero mark.

Agreed.


	Quote: One solution is to choose a meaningful zero point for temperature. Physicists determined that temperature has to do with how much energy there is in the air (or whatever you're taking the temperature of.) This energy is all gone when you get down to a temperature of -273.15 degrees Celsius, or about -460 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature is called "absolute zero." The scientists then invented two new temperature scales: Kelvin, which is the degrees C plus 273.15, and Rankine, which is the degrees F plus 460. That means that 0 degrees on either scale is absolute zero.

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58415.html

However, from Geo's post, wikianswers wrote:


	Quote: I'm not talking about Kelvin, because the zero on the Kelvin scale is set where there is no heat, not where there is no coldness. Presumably, the point of "zero coldness" would be the point at which the highest possible temperature is obtained, and therefore there is no coldness at all. But theoretically, there is no maximum temperature, and therefore no point of "zero coldness".

I'm back to zero.

The Ritzy · Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:18 pm

Too cold for me to live there.

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