Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!nstn.ns.ca!cs.dal.ca!silvert
From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: temperature conversion (NOT A BUG!)
Summary: does A+A=2*A?
Message-ID: <1991Jan25.152415.1640@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 25 Jan 91 15:24:15 GMT
References: <1991Jan24.014724.15552@nmt.edu> <4882@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <38439@cup.portal.com>
Sender: silvert@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Bill Silvert)
Reply-To: bill%biomel@cs.dal.ca
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
Lines: 18

In article <38439@cup.portal.com> Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz) writes:
>The temperature conversion issue in the HP48 was explained rather well at 
>last June's Chicago HP handheld user's conference by Bill Wickes and Eric
>Vogel. The videotapes of that conference are still available, as usual.
>We're up to 69 copies sent out at present.

Does it explain why 0C+0C=273.15C (this I understand, addition is in
absolute scale) but 2*0C=0C (why not convert to absolute first)?

The problem with this discrepancy is that it is not possible to average
two temperatures to find the midpoint unless you convert to a common
scale first.  I therefore feel that the inconsistency is a bug.

-- 
William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2.  Tel. (902)426-1577
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