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
Absolute zero where "S" is the entropy. In such a circumstance, pure substances can (ideally) form perfect crystals as "T" → 0. Max Planck's strong form of the third law of thermodynamics states the entropy of a perfect crystal vanishes at absolute zero. The original Nernst "heat theorem" makes the weaker and less controversial claim that the entropy change for any isothermal process approaches zero as "T" → 0: The implication is that the entropy of a perfect crystal simply approaches a constant value. The Nernst postulate identifies the isotherm T = 0 as coincident with the adiabat S = 0, although