What Is Twice As Cold As 0°C?

Like people have said, talking about just the numbers it would be -136.575ºC
This is because temperature is actually measured in kelvin.

You just need to remember that ºC is only used because it gives a more useful reference from 0, being the freezing temperature of water, everyone 'knows' how cold that is, so 20ºC is more helpful to people than 293.15K
 
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Reldar said:
I've seen a lot of people convert 0 centigrade to fahrenheit/kelvin. Half/double it and convert it back.
I can't help but feel this will yield false results.
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Correct. Crucially, coldness is a relative concept; you determine 0°C to be 'cold' relative to a temperature that you are acquainted with.

When you are describing a temperature as "twice as cold" as another, you mean that the difference between one temperature and a baseline temperature is twice that of the other.

e.g. if we took room temperature (300K) as our baseline, 0°C is 273.15K, so twice as cold is 300-(2*(300-273.15)) = 246.3K, or -26.85°C

You'll note that, unlike many of the incorrect answers in this thread, this produces the same result regardless of scale (celsius, kelvin or fahrenheit) as it reduces the question to a simple monotonic transformation :)
 
Al Vallario said:
Correct. Crucially, coldness is a relative concept; you determine 0°C to be 'cold' relative to a temperature that you are acquainted with.

When you are describing a temperature as "twice as cold" as another, you mean that the difference between one temperature and a baseline temperature is twice that of the other.

e.g. if we took room temperature (300K) as our baseline, 0°C is 273.15K, so twice as cold is 300-(2*(300-273.15)) = 246.3K, or -26.85°C

You'll note that, unlike many of the incorrect answers in this thread, this produces the same result regardless of scale (celsius, kelvin or fahrenheit) as it reduces the question to a simple monotonic transformation :)
Click to expand...

It depends what "cold" means, really. There's certainly no rigorous and accepted definition, so it's really down to interpretation, which makes most answers largely useless, since the question itself isn't particularly meaningful :)
 
Surely 'twice as cold' would need a second boundary to qualify it? It could be twice as cold as it is now for instance, in which case it depends what scale your measuring it on.
 
2c is twice as hot as 1c
-2c is twice as cold as -1c

therefore - 0c can't be doubled.

I think a lot of you are trying to say that twice-zero is colder than twice minus-one.
 
billysielu said:
2c is twice as hot as 1c
-2c is twice as cold as -1c

therefore - 0c can't be doubled.

I think a lot of you are trying to say that twice-zero is colder than twice minus-one.
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but 0C is also 273.15k


So the question could easily be what is twice as cold as 273.15 kelvin
 
You're trying to transpose a human qualitative measure onto an absolute scientific scale.

If room temperature (comfort) is 20c, then 0c is 20c below normal, and twice as cold is -20c.

Simples.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
But that is a different question. The scale must be specific to the question asked.
Click to expand...

"heat" isn't dependent on scale though.

It's the energy of the atom.


You're trying to transpose a human qualitative measure onto an absolute scientific scale.

If room temperature (comfort) is 20c, then 0c is 20c below normal, and twice as cold is -20c.

Simples.
Click to expand...

But is human sense of temperature liner?

Or will -5 or -10 feel twice as cold as 0 c?
 
Edit: brain fart

Al Vallario probably has the best (most intuitive) answer, but any answer is going to be making assumptions about what's actually being asked, and what idea of "cold" is actually being used.
 
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why-did-i-click.jpg
 
In one of those 4am thoughts a few years ago, I remember thinking how darkness and cold don't exist, they're just lower values of light and warmth.
 
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