Welcome to Project Lovelace! We're still in early development so there are still tons of bugs to find and improvements to make.
If you have any suggestions, complaints, or comments please let us know on Discourse, Discord, or GitHub!
Scientific temperatures
You will learn about:
submitting code and temperature conversion.
We'll get you familiar with how submitting code to Project Lovelace works by converting some temperatures. Scientists
like to use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit but sometimes you're given a temperature in Fahrenheit and you have to
convert it to Celsius. It's pretty easy: subtract 32 then multiply by 5/9 or if you like equations
$$ C = \frac{5}{9} (F - 32) $$
In the code editor try to write a function fahrenheit_to_celsius(F) that converts Fahrenheit to
Celsius and we'll test your code when you submit it to make sure you got it right.
Celsius and Fahrenheit are both just scales for measuring temperature. To define a scale, you just need to pick and
define two temperatures. Celsius defines the 0°C to be the temperature at which water freezes, and 100°C is where
water boils. Fahrenheit is older and there are different stories about how it was invented but 0°F was probably the
freezing point of some ice, water and salt solution while 96°F was defined as the average human body temperature
(later redefined to 98.6°F). (Image credit:
Annenberg Learner
)
The Celsius and Farenheit scales read the same temperature at -40°! This is one of the test cases.
Neither Celsius or Fahrenheit are good for science as a temperature of 0 degrees still means that some thermal
energy exists. Scientists use the Kelvin scale which is 0
degrees Kelvin (K) at absolute zero
(-273.15°C), the temperature at which all molecular motion ceases (but some systems still have
some energy at absolute zero due to a quantum mechanical
zero-point energy).
The Celsius scale is technically defined in terms of the Kelvin scale so water actually freezes at −0.0001°C and
boils at 99.9839°C (at standard temperature and pressure).
If you're interested in how the weird Fahrenheit scale came about and what it means.
Let us know what you think about this problem! Was it too hard? Difficult to understand? Also feel free to
discuss the problem, ask questions, and post cool stuff on Discourse. You should be able see a discussion
thread below. Would be nice if you don't post solutions in there but if you do then please organize and
document your code well so others can learn from it.
