Temperature the International System of Units, it has subsequently been redefined in terms of the equivalent fixing points on the Kelvin scale, and so that a temperature increment of one degree Celsius is the same as an increment of one kelvin, though they differ by an additive offset of 273.15. The United States commonly uses the Fahrenheit scale, on which water freezes at and boils at at sea-level atmospheric pressure. Many scientific measurements use the Kelvin temperature scale (unit symbol: K), named in honor of the Scots-Irish physicist who first defined it. It is a thermodynamic or absolute temperature scale. Its
Temperature definition, on an absolute scale, it is always positive. In an apparent contradiction of this reliable and valid rule, a so-called negative absolute "temperature" may be approximately defined for a component of a body that is not in its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium: a component may have a negative approximate "temperature" while the rest of the components of the body have positive approximate temperatures. Such a non-equilibrium situation is either transient in time or is maintained by external factors that drive a flow of energy through the body of interest. An example of such a component is a