Temperature scientists measure temperature using the Celsius scale and thermodynamic temperature using the Kelvin scale, which is the Celsius scale offset so that its null point is = , or absolute zero. Many engineering fields in the U.S., notably high-tech and US federal specifications (civil and military), also use the Kelvin and Celsius scales. Other engineering fields in the U.S. also rely upon the Rankine scale (a shifted Fahrenheit scale) when working in thermodynamic-related disciplines such as combustion. The basic unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI) is the kelvin. It has the symbol K. For everyday applications,
Scale of temperature below as M. Assume the set M has the cardinality of c, then one can construct an injective function ƒ: M → R , by which every thermal system will have a number associated with it such that when and only when two thermal systems have the same such value, they will be in thermal equilibrium. This is clearly the property of temperature, and the specific way of assigning numerical values as temperature is called a "scale of temperature". In practical terms, a temperature scale is always based on usually a single physical property of a simple thermodynamic system, called