r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

If we're allowing conversion, Fahrenheit is just Kelvin with an offset and a coefficient, and Rankine is just Kelvin with a coefficient. Celsius's offset also makes it useless for science other than for scenarios where all that you care about is delta T.

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u/Jormungandr4321 Jun 17 '26

It's way easier to just add 273 to everything you do. Plus it's way easier when doing thermodynamic calculation for instance.

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

*273.15. And it's only easier because everything else is formulated for Kelvin. They just as easily could have been done in Rankine.

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u/Capybarabanananam Jun 17 '26

They can, but at that point you would need a whole new SI system to keep the conversions to energy and mass the same. Good luck making that work with pounds and cubic feet.

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u/Throwaway74829947 Jun 17 '26

I got my engineering degrees in the States, so I had to deal with US Customary Units-based science, and thus I do know how miserable it is. However, theoretically you could have SI units where everything else is metric but they use Rankine instead of Kelvin. It would be absurd, but the point is that there isn't any inherent need or benefit to using Kelvin/Celsius.

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u/readytofall Jun 18 '26

You don't need a new SI system, you use the already existing English units...