Talk:Rankine scale

NIST does not "recommends against using the degree symbol when citing Rankine in NIST publications"

I've taken the liberty of shuffling the contents of this page around to bring all of the posts about the degree symbol into one location. Normally I wouldn't get involved in this discussion but the current article statement that "The US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends against using the degree symbol when citing Rankine in NIST publications.^[1]" is clearly incorrect. If you follow the reference to NIST, the page is titled "The NIST Guide for the use of the International System of Units". SI units are all metric, Rankine is not. I read this NIST document to say; NIST documents will use SI units, not anything about the degree symbol and Rankine units. In fact if you read the NIST document through to appendix B.8 (conversion tables) it says "Caution: The units listed in column 1 are in general not to be used in NIST publications, with the exception of those few in italic type." The few in italic are SI units. I.e. do not use non-SI units for general use in NIST publications.

https://www.nist.gov/physical-measurement-laboratory/nist-guide-si-appendix-b8

The Wikipedia article originally said The US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends against using degrees Rankine in NIST publications. (this is almost correct, it really says; use SI units)

This was changed to The US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends against using the degree symbol when citing Rankine in NIST publications

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rankine_scale&diff=743831554&oldid=740477030

The justification for this change was an article in Science Notes.

https://sciencenotes.org/why-there-is-no-degree-in-kelvin-temperature/

The Science Notes article does indeed say "NIST advises against using the degree when citing Rankine temperatures", but is completely wrong in this statement. I have not found anywhere that NIST says "don't use the degree symbol with Rankine (except Wikipedia and the Science Notes article). NIST does use the degree symbol with Rankine in their table of conversion factors, which kind of points out the error in the statement.

[From the NIST conversion tables appendix A.8] degree Rankine (°R) kelvin (K) T/K = (T/°R)/1.8

The British Standards organization (BSI Standards) also uses the degree symbol with Rankine in the conversion tables in BS350.

https://www.scribd.com/document/359729247/bs-350-part-1-94-conversion-factors-and-tables-pdf

I don't have a dog in this show. I really don't care whether this Wikipedia article says to use the degree symbol or not. But it bothers me that it says "NIST recommends against using the degree symbol" when NIST is using the degree symbol with Rankine.

My suggestion would be to change the current statement (20180528)

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends against using the degree symbol when citing Rankine in NIST publications.^[1]

to something like

The use of the degree symbol with Rankine is somewhat contentious with some citations being clearly against using the degree symbol and others using the degree symbol. Standards organizations such as NIST and BSI use SI units and avoid the controversy, but when these organizations list Rankine units in conversion tables they use the degree symbol^[1]".

I'm not really happy with this phrasing so if you have an alternate phrasing or clarification of this statement please say so. EE JRW (talk) 03:41, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

° degrees

In the text and in one table, the symbol is R. In the other table it is °R. Which one is right? Rankine are degrees like Celsius or are like kelvin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.17.206.97 (talk) 01:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

i would say that, if the kelvin article is to be believed, it would not use the term "degree" because since it is an absolute scale, it is not a degree of anything. (The omission of "degree" indicates that it is not relative to an arbitrary reference point such as the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, but rather an absolute unit of measure which can be manipulated algebraically). but usage isn't always consistent... and since rankine are so rarely used anymore i'd be surprised if one could settle this issue resolutely. regardless, though, this article should stick to one or the other for consistency's sake.

Heterodoxus (talk) 04:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It is an absolute scale, but convention dictates that the symbol should use the degree symbol, as in °R. The rankine scale is still used in petroleum engineering, I certainly wouldn't call it rarely used. It's convenient for thermodynamic calculations when working with imperial units. I've never seen it shown as R without the degree symbol. Since petroleum is where the unit is still widely used, and in recent publications it has still been called "degree Rankine" (see the Petroleum Engineering Handbook VII, Indexes and Standards, 2007), I'll go ahead and add the degree symbol to the article. 130.49.5.10 (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

In every physics and chemistry book I've ever seen, it has always omitted the ° symbol on Rankine, because it is an absolute scale. When read aloud, you would say "six hundred rankine", not "six hundred degrees rankine" Until a cite can be given stating that the symbol does belong, it should be omitted. Peabody80 (talk) 20:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice to know in what way the Rankine temperature scale is used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.17.242.76 (talk) 02:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, basically whenever you want to describe temperature relative to absolute zero - it is just as valid as the Kelvin scale and not "antiquated" (basically don't believe anything you read in Wiki-land, with the possible exception of this statement) in any way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.164.201 (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I concur with 69.243.164.201. One of the problems with the "metric system" is that so many people trained only in the metric system are so ignorant of other systems. It often comes off, strangely, as a kind of arrogance, a sense of superiority. The metric system is just as arbitrary as other systems and also as frequently used inconsistently (kilogram-force, etc.) About the only thing it has going for it is that system of tens and tenths, but even that is easily grafted on to other systems - and it frequently is! "Metric-centric" thinking is just ignorance-based snobbery!  :-)

108.7.2.66 (talk) 07:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2014

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

i have found evidence that in America Rankine has no degree symbol so this page and others will be excluding this information ( on page 20) 70.41.96.39 (talk) 17:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Pages 20-21 are not available in that preview, do you have another source or perhaps there is someone who can make the edit that can find that book? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 17:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• In my preview, pages 20-21 are available, and the text says:

  Rankine (R): An absolute temperature scale that uses the Fahrenheit scale, William Rankine's system declares the freezing point of water to be 459.67 Rankine. [...] Note that Kelvin and Rankine scales don't use the degree symbol. The degree symbol was dropped from the Kelvin scale in 1967, and some textbooks have followed suit with Rankine. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 18:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• "...and some textbooks have followed suit..." in a "For dummies" book doesn't inspire confidence that this is what is accepted in the scientific community. I have no issue with someone else making the change if they are comfortable with that, but I am not unless there is a scientific journal or some such that says it. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 18:11, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Rankine is just R

it may sound kinda wired but in the engineering for dummies book it says that Rankine is just R ( pg 20) Wes1230 (talk) 18:08, 18 February 2014 (UTC)wes1230

• This has already been covered above. An official publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology at U.S. Department of Commerce lists it as a 'degree Rankine'. I am not opposed to changing the article to mention that the unit is sometimes referred to as just 'Rankine', but it would probably need a better reference than a "for dummies" popular book. (User:Peabody80 above has said that he has always seen it as a 'Rankine' rather than a 'degree Rankine', so the references surely exist.) - Mike Rosoft (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

i have a text book that shows Rankine as just R sorry to strain this but I fell if Kelvin can be units of CELSIUS (not centigrade you Englishmen :D) then Rankine can be too: "Modern Engineering Thermodynamics - Textbook with Tables Booklet" read it in google books — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wes1230 (talk • contribs)

• The source says (page 10): "Notice that we do not use the degree symbol (°) with either the Kelvin or the Rankine absolute temperature scale symbols. The reason for this is by international agreement as explained later in this chapter." - Mike Rosoft (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• I think the references are good; I have added the following text to the article: "By analogy with Kelvin, some authors call the unit Rankine, omitting the degree symbol." - Mike Rosoft (talk) 05:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Use

The Réaumur scale was used widely in Europe, particularly in France, Germany and Russia, and was referenced in the works of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gustave Flaubert, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, and Vladimir Nabokov.^[1][2][3][4] For example, in Query VII of Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson converts readings from the Fahrenheit thermometer at Williamsburg to the Réaumur scale. At the beginning of Book X of The Brothers Karamazov, the narrator says, "We had eleven degrees of frost", i.e. −11 °Ré, equivalent to −14 °C or 7 °F.^[5] By the 1790s, France had chosen the Celsius scale as part of the metric system, rather than the Réaumur measurement,^[6] but the Réaumur scale continued to be used in some parts of Europe until at least the mid-19th century,^[7] and in parts of Russia until the early 20th. While living in Paris, George Orwell mentions "translating Réaumur into Fahrenheit" even in 1929. Its main modern uses are in some Italian and Swiss factories for measuring milk temperature during cheese production,^[8] and in the Netherlands for measuring temperature when cooking sugar syrup ^{[citation needed]} for desserts and sweets.

Uses outside of Europe include a Mexican colonel in Santa Anna's army in San Antonio, Texas in 1836 recording the night's temperature as 34 °F and 1 °Ré.^[9]

2003:C8:472F:4C00:FD83:4E30:9E57:93A3 (talk) 13:22, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy is Wikipedia:No original research. We need WP:SCHOLARSHIP-compliant WP:reliable sources for statements and for any recommendations such as "it is better to use °Ra to be unambiguous". Reasoning from WP:primary sources is not admissible. NebY (talk) 10:42, 2 July 2025 (UTC)