Melissa asked:

If it's 0 degrees outside, and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be tomorrow?

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It will still be 0 degrees, since 0 x 2 = 0.

T. P. Uschanov

Research Assistant

Department of Philosophy

University of Helsinki

There is no answer to Melissa's question as formulated. A 0-degree reading does not stand for a
nullity as does, for example, a 0 balance in a bank account (i.e., no quantity of money). Rather, it
marks a position between -1 degree and +1 degree, neither of which is a nullity. The question as
formulated may misdirect some into doubling the cardinalvalue of zero, yielding zero, with the
paradoxical result that tomorrow's temperature will be the same, and "twice as cold," as today's.

Let's consider a similar question. If an earthquake in 2002 registered 5.0 on the Richter scale, and
another in 2003 was 60 times more powerful, what was the reading for the latter? The answer is 6.0:
each succeeding number from 1 to 10 on the Richter scale represents a force 60 times greater than
that of the preceding number. The ordinal numbers on a thermometer, however, do not represent
magnitudes the way a Richter scale. That is, we can say that a 30-degree day is warmer than a
15-degree day, but not "twice as hot" as the latter. There may be some objective meaning to "twice as
cold," e.g., the halving of some thermal magnitude. We cannot divine that meaning, however, by
treating the ordinalnumbers on a thermometer's face as cardinalnumbers. Positions are not
quantities.

Tony Flood

The perceptionthat the weather is 'twice as cold' as it was yesterday has nothing to do with the
reading on a thermometer, but everything to do with where one happens to live. Tell someone who
lives in Moscow who is used to hard winters that it will be twice as cold tomorrow and they form a
different expectation — as measured on a temperature scale — from a Londoner.

Geoffrey Klempner