PHYSICS: A. McADIE 
671 
the Fahrenheit scale has now outlived its usefulness. Some meteorol- 
ogists however still oppose the use of the centigrade scale and also the 
absolute, on the ground that the scale division even when read to tenths 
is too large for meteorological purposes. 
To meet this objection and for other reasons, I suggest a new scale to 
be known as the New Absolute, or briefly, New. The zero of the new 
scale will be the same as that of the absolute, approximately 491° below 
freezing on the Fahrenheit and 273° below on the centigrade. The 
other fiducial point is the temperature of melting ice at a pressure of 
1000 kilobars and is marked 1000. (The degree sign is omitted as it 
has been decided to reserve this symbol for angular measure.) The 
scale divisions are thus 0.366 of the centigrade, even smaller than the 
Fahrenheit and permit of any desired refinement of reading. Some 
other advantages of the new scale are : 
1. The abolition of all minus signs. In upper air work temperatures 
are far below freezing. At a height of 10 kilometers readings may be 
lower than those recorded by Scott in the Antarctic. Given such a read- 
ing as — 66.0°F., or — 54.0°C or 219.0°A.; on the new scale this is read 
800. Or again, some of the surface winter temperatures are confusing 
unless the minus sign is emphasized. The new scale has an advantage 
here as when we write 900 in place of — 17.5°F. or — 27.0°C or even 
245. 7°A. 
2. The grand division of warm and cold as experienced by the general 
public in the every-day affairs of life is characteristically marked. Warm 
is any reading above 1100; cold is any reading below 1000. 
3. In published tabular work there is a saving in typographical com- 
position. There is also a saving of time in computation and increased 
accuracy. 
4. But of even greater importance is the fact that the new scale makes 
for clearer conceptions of the nature and magnitude of temperature 
changes. It is astonishing how indefinite and vague are the ideas of 
most students regarding heat and the significance of a given tempera- 
ture. And furthermore it is a difficult matter with the present scales 
to present clearly to the student a picture of the process of energy trans- 
fer available as heat. 
5. The new scale starting as it does from the temperature of no molec- 
ular motion and laying stress upon the temperature of change of form 
of the most familiar substance, water to ice, has it would seem to me, 
a certain educational value, which the Fahrenheit and centigrade cer- 
tainly do not have and which the absolute scale owing to the awkward- 
ness of the fraction 1/273 loses. 
