Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin: The Big Three Temperature Scales

https://www.liacoseducationalmedia.com

Teachers, keep cool and use Liacos Educational Media's excellent Shedding Light on Heat series to teach your students everything that they need to know about heat, including its effect on things and how it transfers from one thing to another.

In Episode 4, The Kelvin Scale, we look at the temperature scale that in many ways is superior to the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales. Zero on the Kelvin scale is equal to -273°C. And why is -273°C so special? Because that’s the coldest temperature you can get!

Contents:
Part A: Introduction. Zero on the Kelvin scale starts at -273°C. But what’s so special about -273°C?
Part B: Colder and Colder: How cold can you go? The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth is about -90°C, but the outer planets of our solar system get much much colder. However, they are still really hot compared to “absolute zero”.
Part C: Coefficient of Thermal Expansion: Different things expand by different amounts when they are heated.
Part D: Kelvins: As things get colder and colder, the atoms that make them up vibrate with less and less energy. At some point the atoms stop vibrating, so they can’t get any colder of course.
Part E: What’s So Good about the Kelvin Scale? It has allowed us to build the industries that our modern world depends on, that’s what!

Credit Notice:
The Shedding Light on Heat series makes use of the brilliant simulations created by
PhET Interactive Simulations
University of Colorado Boulder
https://phet.colorado.edu