RatDog 5120208919°
If you ever wanted to know, since it does not show up on your iPhone or Galaxy home screen, what the temperature of outer space is, now you do — well, sort of. Read on for a full explanation. Of course, you could ask Siri, Alexa, Echo, Bixby, or Jeeves (sometimes it’s fun to be able to name your AI home spying, I mean, service device). In fact, why don’t I do that? Alexa says, “the temperature in outer space is generally around minus 455° Fahrenheit or minus 270° Celsius (or if you’re an aspiring nerdfluencer, 2.7 Kelvin). I’m only telling you this because I just found out myself after “pocketing” a Popular Mechanics article titled “The Weirdly Nihilistic Reason Why Outer Space Is So Cold.”
So, now we know how cold space is, but we don’t know why it’s so frosty. Well — RABBIT HOLE ALERT! — for physicists, writer Jennifer Leman tells us, “temperature is all about velocity and motion.” So, in the fevered brains of scientists (and we know they must be fevered, right, given prime examples like Dr. No, Dr. Frankenstein, Brainiac, Dr. Death, and the like), heat has nothing to do with how cold or hot a place might be, but how fast particles move about in the space that makes up that place as in, er, well, space. At the coldest temperature we can imagine, absolute zero (–459.67° Fahrenheit), all particles come to a dead stop. Or, in science speak, “no motion or heat is transferred between particles, even at the quantum level.”
So, why is space so cold? Our planet (and others) are warmer than space because we have a dense blanket of dust and gas particles around us that absorb solar radiation, get heated up and dance around like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof, and transfer that heat to everything around them. Leman writes, “Far outside our solar system and out past the distant reaches of our galaxy — in the vast nothingness of space — the distance between gas and dust particles grows, limiting their ability to transfer heat…. So anything not directly in the view of the sun [or a sun], stays cool. Really cool.”
As I read about how temperatures are measured using different scales invented by guys (yes, all guys) named Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin, I found myself growing jealous. What was so special about those guys that they got their names (or symbols for their names) plunked variously on every temperature gauge ever made, in zillions of equations, and on book covers and kitchen appliances?
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) was a physicist, inventor, and scientific instrument-maker. Born in Poland, he moved to and lived most of his life in Holland. He invented the mercury-in-glass thermometer and the Fahrenheit scale, the first standardized measure of hot and cold and in-between. His scale was defined by two fixed points with a 180° separation: the point at which pure water freezes (32° F) and the point where water boils (212° F).
Fine, so we have a way of measuring temperature. No need to mess with that, right? No need for the metric versus imperial units of measurement ridiculousness that has been driving us all — well, me at least — crazy for our entire lives, right? Wrong. After Fahrenheit, along came Anders Celsius, who thumbed his nose or whatever at Fahrenheit, saying, “Whatever you can do, I can do better.” Celsius thought, what’s with this stupid 32° and 212°? Why not make it simpler and make the freezing point 0° and the boiling point 100°? C’est voila! That’s what he did, inventing the centigrade scale of temperature that was later renamed after him in his honor.
Most of the world agreed with Celsius and adopted his system. (Not us, though. Oh, no. Together with Liberia and a few island territories, we Americans doggedly hold onto our Fahrenheit heritage, along with imperial measurements, come hell or high water because…because…we can.)
Okay, so, basically the Fahrenheitans lost the war to the Celsians even though some sore losers (any names come to mind?) just won’t admit defeat. Fine, we lost. Can we just relax and call freezing 0° and boiling 100° now? Of course not, because after Celsius along came William Thomson, the 1st Baron Kelvin (that’s him above). Thomson, to his credit (I guess), figured out that the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero, equaled roughly –273.15 °C or the aforementioned –459.67 °F. So someone got the bright idea of creating a new scale of hot and cold, called the “absolute scale,” in his honor, with absolute zero equaling 1 K. The only discernible difference to me is this, as Dr. Anne Marie Helenstine notes in seemingly circular and definitely incomprehensible logic: “Because it is ‘absolute,’ a thermodynamic temperature reading [Kelvin] is not followed by a degree sign.”
So, which is it: °F, °C, or K? Since now I can’t decide, I’ll just have to invent my own temperature scale, named the RatDog scale, of course, and denoted by °RD (which is absolute in the sense of being utter nonsense but I’m keeping the degree sign anyway). Here’s my scale:
- Absolute Zero = 51202089191151222914 °RD
- Freezing Point of Water = 51202089196181851485920 °RD
- Boiling Point of Water = 512020891935121992119 °RD
My method here is simple and straightforward. I take the number position of the letters in the English alphabet for the apropos descriptions below. Here’s the conversion:
- Absolute Zero: EatThisKelvin
- Freezing Point of Water: EatThisFahrenheit
- Boiling Point of Water: EatThisCelsius
As for figuring out the °RD temperatures in between these benchmarks, you are on your own. Just make up a phrase that describes how you are feeling about the current temperature and then use the alphabet to convert it into numerals. The cool thing about this is that you can make rude comments in public while appearing to be innocently discussing the weather. Genius!
[Coming soon, however. The patented RatDog temperature translation app. Enter the phrase of your choice and instantly get the °RD reading. Only $9.99 (excluding taxes, handling fees, tech monopoly markups, customer service fees, foreign tariffs, pollution abatement fees, cat and dog licenses, environmental degradation assessments, sewer and water charges, parking permit fees, contributions to the cigarette, booze, and snack funds…. Full list of charges available on request.)]
(Published originally on RatBlurt™, June 17, 2022.)
