Rankine scale Rankine scale The Rankine scale () is an absolute scale of thermodynamic temperature named after the Glasgow University engineer and physicist William John Macquorn Rankine, who proposed it in 1859. (The Kelvin scale was first proposed in 1848.) It may be used in engineering systems where heat computations are done using degrees Fahrenheit. The symbol for degrees Rankine is °R (or °Ra if necessary to distinguish it from the Rømer and Réaumur scales). By analogy with kelvin, some authors term the unit "rankine", omitting the degree symbol. Zero on both the Kelvin and Rankine scales is absolute zero, but a
Temperature kinetic energy of the molecules. Heating will also cause, through equipartitioning, the energy associated with vibrational and rotational modes to increase. Thus a diatomic gas will require more energy input to increase its temperature by a certain amount, i.e. it will have a greater heat capacity than a monatomic gas. The process of cooling involves removing internal energy from a system. When no more energy can be removed, the system is at absolute zero, though this cannot be achieved experimentally. Absolute zero is the null point of the thermodynamic temperature scale, also called absolute temperature. If it were possible to