Kelvin Kelvin The Kelvin scale is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale using as its null point absolute zero, the temperature at which all thermal motion ceases in the classical description of thermodynamics. The kelvin (symbol: K) is the base unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI). Until 2018, the kelvin was defined as the fraction of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water (exactly 0.01 °C or 32.018 °F). In other words, it is defined such that the triple point of water is exactly 273.16 K. On 16 November 2018, a new definition was adopted, in
Absolute zero if so, where the zero must be placed, was first addressed by the French physicist Guillaume Amontons in 1702, in connection with his improvements in the air-thermometer. His instrument indicated temperatures by the height at which a certain mass of air sustained a column of mercury—the volume, or "spring" of the air varying with temperature. Amontons therefore argued that the zero of his thermometer would be that temperature at which the spring of the air was reduced to nothing. He used a scale that marked the boiling-point of water at +73 and the melting-point of ice at +, so that