Okay, so I saw this question floating around the internet: “How many calories are in Celsius?” and I was like, “Wait, what?” It sounded totally off, but it got me curious. I mean, I know Celsius is for temperature, and calories are for, you know, food energy. But the question stuck in my head, so I decided to do a little digging.
First, I googled it, straight up. Just typed in “how many calories are in celsius”.
The results were pretty much what I expected, but worded in a way that made it all click. Most sites were saying the same basic thing, which, the key part, Calories and Celsius, these guys measure totally different things. Like apples and, I don’t know, screwdrivers. You can’t compare them directly.
My Experiment (Kind Of)
I thought about it, and my own simple experiment would describe it best.
- I grabbed a glass of water.
- I used a thermometer to check the water’s temperature. Let’s say it was 20°C.
- Then, I thought. Okay, so the temperature is 20 degrees.
- How much heat you have to use to make it hotter?
That’s it. It is not how many “calories” are in the 20 degrees Celsius, just how much heat energy would it take, it has “calorie” is the unit.
So, my little “experiment” (more like a thought process, really) showed me it’s a nonsense question.
It’s like asking “how many miles are in a kilogram?” They just measure totally different stuff. My initial confusion turned into a “duh” moment, but hey, at least I learned something (or, more accurately, re-confirmed something I already knew in a slightly different way).
