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
Thermodynamic temperature wavelength increases (the photons' energy decreases). When the particles of a substance are as close as possible to complete rest and retain only ZPE-induced quantum mechanical motion, the substance is at the temperature of absolute zero ("T"=0). Note that whereas absolute zero is the point of zero thermodynamic temperature and is also the point at which the particle constituents of matter have minimal motion, absolute zero is not necessarily the point at which a substance contains zero thermal energy; one must be very precise with what one means by "internal energy". Often, all the phase changes that "can" occur in