Temperature 1 part in 273.16 parts of the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water; it establishes that one kelvin has precisely the same magnitude as one degree on the Celsius scale; and it establishes the difference between the null points of these scales as being ( = and = ). In the United States, the Fahrenheit scale is widely used. On this scale the freezing point of water corresponds to and the boiling point to . The Rankine scale, still used in fields of chemical engineering in the U.S., is an absolute scale based on the Fahrenheit
Absolute zero energy. The laws of thermodynamics indicate that absolute zero cannot be reached using only thermodynamic means, because the temperature of the substance being cooled approaches the temperature of the cooling agent asymptotically, and a system at absolute zero still possesses quantum mechanical zero-point energy, the energy of its ground state at absolute zero. The kinetic energy of the ground state cannot be removed. Scientists and technologists routinely achieve temperatures close to absolute zero, where matter exhibits quantum effects such as superconductivity and superfluidity. At temperatures near , nearly all molecular motion ceases and Δ"S" = 0 for any adiabatic process,