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
Scale of temperature the measurement of temperature, the formal definition of thermal equilibrium in terms of the thermodynamic coordinate spaces of thermodynamic systems, expressed in the zeroth law of thermodynamics, provides the framework to measure temperature. All temperature scales, including the modern thermodynamic temperature scale used in the International System of Units, are calibrated according to thermal properties of a particular substance or device. Typically, this is established by fixing two well-defined temperature points and defining temperature increments via a linear function of the response of the thermometric device. For example, both the old Celsius scale and Fahrenheit scale were originally based on