Karen said:
>Also if we are going to be picky-- if you think about temp in Kelvin-
>there is an absolute zero- which would make it ratio! :) Karen
Indeed, temp in Kelvin is ratio. The reason you had to convert temp
to an absolute scale in your physics class when doing gas law problems was
because you were using ratios there. For example, you take a container of
fixed volume at temp T1 and pressure P1. Increase the temp to T2, keep
the volume fixed. What is the new pressure, P2? Since the ratio of the
pressures will equal the ratio of the temperatures, P2/P1 = T2/T1, and
you know P1, T2, & T1. But to employ these values in ratios, they must
be ratio scale, thus the conversion to Kelvin (or other absolute scale).
My high school physics teacher was evil enough to give us the temperatures
in degrees Fahrenheit.
Keep in mind that it is not attributes of the characteristic which make
it ordinal, interval, or ratio, but rather attributes of how we measure it.
If the relationship between our measurements and the truth is positive
monotonic, we have ordinal data; if positive linear, we have interval data;
if positive linear with a zero intercept, ratio.
Karl L. Wuensch, Associate Professor, Graduate Faculty,
Director of Psychology/Social Work Computer Labs
Dept. of Psychology, East Carolina Univ.
Greenville, NC 27858-4353, phone 252-328-4102, fax 252-328-6283
Bitnet Address: PSWUENSC@ECUVM1
Internet Address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web Address: http://ecuvax.cis.ecu.edu/~pswuensc/klw.htm
