Kinetic energy, writing convention

To assign quantitative values to temperature, we need an agreed upon temperature scale. Each unit of the scale is then called a degree(°). Since the temperature is linearly proportional to the average kinetic energy of the atoms and molecules in the system, we just need to specify the constant of proportionality to define a temperature scale. By convention, we choose (3/2) k where k is Boltzmann s constant. Thus we can define T in a particular unit system by writing ... 

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