Talk:coldness

RFV discussion: September 2015–January 2016

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coldness

Rfv-sense - "reciprocal temperature". Is there such a thing? SemperBlotto (talk) 18:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

It looks like they're using sense #5 of reciprocal: "contrary or opposite". There has to be a better way to phrase it, though- anytime someone starts a definition with "a technical name for...", I get nervous. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:21, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Based on the relevant Wikipedia article (Thermodynamic beta), I actually think they are using the mathematical sense of "reciprocal". If I understand correctly, coldness is the reciprocal (multiplicative inverse) of absolute temperature. Garrod's Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics should provide one citation. This book seems to be using a similar sense, but I don't know enough physics to be sure if it's the same. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 02:14, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Castle et al in 1965 were perhaps the first to point out the more fundamental nature of reciprocal temperature (in the mathematical sense of 1/T). They went to the trouble of having the letters in the font for temperature inverted, although one still had to speak the awkward phrase "reciprocal temperature" when encountering it. In physics, we commonly apologize about more specific "technical definitions" for words like work, power, etc. even though vernacular uses cover a much wider range of meaning. By the way, that 1972 Springer book (linked above) by Ingo Mueller might be an interesting find as it predates Garrod's text by more than 20 years. In that context, I'll check to see what prior uses are cited by Garrod. Thermochap (talk) 11:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• We do define similar concepts from other fields of physics in the same way (conductivity is "reciprocal of resistivity", slowness is "reciprocal of velocity"). However, it can't be from the 1995 textbook, since I can find hits on Google Scholar as early as 1966. Really, it's just the obvious name, and I'd imagine many scientists have independently invented it as a nonce word. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I've added a few citations to the inverse or reciprocal temperature definition. There are likely prior ones as well, plus I'm not sure about my formatting. Thermochap (talk) 12:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Resolved: RFV tag to be removed by the nominator. Thermochap (talk) 17:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

In fact, the RFV tag was removed by User:Thermochap, so I have restored it until an administrator or experienced user closes the discussion. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 20:15, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I am indeed not an experienced user. Thermochap (talk) 13:42, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be cited. So, RFV-passed? - -sche (discuss) 04:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)