One of my professors pronounces degrees Rankin ending with "kin" and the other one with "keen". I always thought it was pronounced and spelled as in "kin". Anyone else heard it pronounced with the long ee sound?

Never. But I have heard the reyn ("ren") pronounced "rane"

Nobody uses Rankin. We all use kelvin. And kelvin is British too.

<<
Nobody uses Rankin.
>>

Nobody, eh? Well I do. So do all the engineering professors at my college and most other colleges in the US, and a good fraction of practising engineers. I take it that we don't count as people, then?

Lord Kelvin was British. The Kelvin is not British in as much as it is a part of SI and not the Imperial system.

If you are not just Eric but a seperate person, as Bud believes, please desist posting this inflammatory and factually incorrect garbage. It is only going to make you enemies.

"nobody uses..." is the usual text of Euric, I think you'll find.

What is the temperature today - it feels quite cold. I reckon its about 240

Nobody, eh? Well I do. So do all the engineering professors at my college and most other colleges in the US, and a good fraction of practising engineers. I take it that we don't count as people, then?


I believe YOU do. But no REAL engineer or scientist does. You must go out of your way to take published data and convert it to this useless form just to be different. Or to say it can and is done. If you were wasting time under my employ, for sure you would be collecting your next pay cheque from the unemployment office.

There is a reason that data is published using either degrees Celsius or Kelvin, but never Rankine.

lol!

CALM DOWN!

I was merely saying that Euric usually starts his quotes with "No-one uses..." ! I wasn't saying that no-one uses Celsius or whatever - I would be contradicting myself if I did! You read my post wrongly.

I've never used "Rankine" myself - I don't even know what it means.

However I would ask a close friend to shoot me on the day that I declare that no-one should be allowed to use such a word and that anyone who does is somehow "lower" than me.

Sound familiar?

Steve has never heard of Rankin.

There are four commonly used temperature scales -

Celcius - Water freezes at 0ºC, boils at 100ºC
Kelvin - Identical to Celcius, except that 0K is absolute zero.

Fahrenheit - Water freezes at 32ºF and boils at 212ºF
Rankin - Identical to Fahrenheit, except that 0ºR is absolute zero.


If you cast your mind back to the gas laws, you might recall that

P1 P2
-- = --
T1 T2

Where P1 and P2 are gas pressures and T1 and T2 are temperatures measured relative to absolute zero. Almost all scientists and most engineers use the Kelvin scale, but due to the fact that Fahrneheit is widely used in the US, US engineers sometimes use Rankin instead of Kelvin.

It might help if you all at least spelled the unit correctly.

It's spelled RankinE. This may be why there is confusion about the pronunciation. The unit is named for the British physicist and engineer William Rankine (1820-1872). So it is just as BRITISH as Lord Kelvin.

As to the use in the US, it is most certainly used in thermodynamics applications as much as the BTU. I was educated to use Rankine for customary applications and Kelvin for metric ones in college (mind you if there was any question about my age, I'm 24).

MattS wrote

<<
It might help if you all at least spelled the unit correctly.
>>

Typo on my part - I have never actually used the unit in anger! (I have used the other three in the past!)

<<
But no REAL engineer or scientist does.
>>

Evidence, please?

Evidence, please?


If you check your handbooks you will see all referance use either Kelvin or degrees Celsius only. I'm referring to both electrical and Mechanical Engineering handbooks. In either case, Rankine never is seen.

In the few cases where I have seen Fahrenheits used in formulas, it was in the form of °F/°F, where the fahrenheits cancelled each other out. Formulas that depend on an actual temperature use either Kelvin or Degrees Celsius.

Look at the formula to calculate resistance based on temperature. It only works in Kelvin or degress Celsius. It works in both because the temperature difference of either is the same number.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/restmp.html

Errr, what handbooks have you been looking at, mate? All the ones I see use both Rankine and Fahrenheit and Celsius and Kelvin.

Look up "selective vision" !

Look up "selective vision" !

We got you the first forty-minutes before, Steve!!! Cheers. ps I am drunk again.

I have textbooks and manuals making reference to degrees F and R, as well as other American engineering units.
This is not my opinion, metre. This is a fact.

That even the BRITISH handbooks and manuals etc in my library at college feature Rankine and Fahrenheit, also!

<<<Evidence, please?>>>

Another clue that Rabies-deer is not a UK'er

Mr H,

When are you going to learn to concentrate on the issues rather than the personalities?

Practically every post I've seen of yours tries to score points against the individual as much as the subject under discussion.

It is because these personalities are so amusing; their amusing nature ought to be highlighted.

And in the case of Eric (metre) poked with a (virtual) sharp stick so that he growls