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by thaumasiotes 2753 days ago
It's already there, if you know enough to recognize it:

> The degree Celsius (°C) can refer to a specific temperature on the Celsius scale or a unit to indicate a difference between two temperatures

In other words, you can add a quantity of °C to a temperature value and you'll get another temperature value. But you can't measure a temperature in °C.

Compare how, for example, the python datetime library uses a datetime type and a timedelta type. A datetime plus a timedelta is a datetime. datetimes refer to points in time, and timedeltas don't.

°C measures a temperature delta, but not a temperature.

1 comments

> It's already there, if you know enough to recognize it

"As an SI derived unit", "or a unit to indicate", "the unit was called"

Three mentions of it being a unit in the first paragraph, alone. I understand the point being made; the conclusion that "celsius is not a unit" is bogus, however, by any common definition, including NIST's.

In a now-deleted comment, you linked to a Wikipedia page on Dimensional Analysis, which includes the sentence "to convert from units of Fahrenheit to units of Celsius".