Thermodynamic temperature the properties of a particular material; two that it refers to an absolute zero according to the properties of the ideal gas. The International System of Units specifies a particular scale for thermodynamic temperature. It uses the kelvin scale for measurement and selects the triple point of water at 273.16 K as the fundamental fixing point. Other scales have been in use historically. The Rankine scale, using the degree Fahrenheit as its unit interval, is still in use as part of the English Engineering Units in the United States in some engineering fields. ITS-90 gives a practical means of estimating
Scale of temperature of matter. Temperature is a universal attribute of matter, yet empirical scales map a narrow range onto a scale that is known to have a useful functional form for a particular application. Thus, their range is limited. The working material only exists in a form under certain circumstances, beyond which it no longer can serve as a scale. For example, mercury freezes below 234.32 K, so temperature lower than that cannot be measured in a scale based on mercury. Even ITS-90, which interpolates among different ranges of temperature, has only a range of 0.65 K to approximately 1358 K (−272.5