Kelvin Celsius, which has the same magnitude. The definition implies that absolute zero (0 K) is equivalent to . In 1848, William Thomson, who later was made Lord Kelvin, wrote in his paper, "On an Absolute Thermometric Scale", of the need for a scale whereby "infinite cold" (absolute zero) was the scale's null point, and which used the degree Celsius for its unit increment. Kelvin calculated that absolute zero was equivalent to −273 °C on the air thermometers of the time. This absolute scale is known today as the Kelvin thermodynamic temperature scale. Kelvin's value of "−273" was the negative reciprocal
Absolute zero the zero was equivalent to about −240 on the Celsius scale. This close approximation to the modern value of −273.15 °C for the zero of the air-thermometer was further improved upon in 1779 by Johann Heinrich Lambert, who observed that might be regarded as absolute cold. Values of this order for the absolute zero were not, however, universally accepted about this period. Pierre-Simon Laplace and Antoine Lavoisier, in their 1780 treatise on heat, arrived at values ranging from 1,500 to 3,000 below the freezing-point of water, and thought that in any case it must be at least 600 below. John