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When describing the colour of light globes, you see temperatures like 2700 K or 6000 K. The surface of the sun is around 5500 K. This could be written as 2.7 kilo-Kelvin or 2.7 kK (or 6 kK, 5.5 kK respectively), but is this avoided for clarity?

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    $\begingroup$ If you're speaking about labels written for the general public, most people barely know what Kelvin is let alone kK $\endgroup$
    – RC_23
    Commented Aug 24, 2023 at 13:05
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    $\begingroup$ The unit when fully spelled it is in lowercase ("kelvin"). See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin $\endgroup$
    – Mauricio
    Commented Aug 24, 2023 at 13:07
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    $\begingroup$ There really isn't a reason for it. It is just a convention, You might as well say habit. People are used to it, so it would look odd to do it another way. $\endgroup$
    – mmesser314
    Commented Aug 24, 2023 at 13:16
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    $\begingroup$ If memory serves, there was a short period of time when the “Kayser” was defined as 1000 wavenumbers. So 500 nm was 20 kK, with K as the symbol for Kayser. Thankfully, this is kaput (no symbol needed)! $\endgroup$
    – Ed V
    Commented Aug 24, 2023 at 13:23

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In certain fields there are "customary" ways of managing unit multipliers. For thousands of kelvins, they are expressed as four-digit or 5-digit numbers. Similarly, for measurements of small mechanical parts, decimal inches almost always are given with three digits to the right of the decimal point.

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree, though 2700 m or 6000 g would be written at 2.7 km or 6 kg. $\endgroup$
    – Peter Lawrey
    Commented Aug 25, 2023 at 12:31
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The SI multiples of the kelvin are used in the scientific literature, kilokelvin and kK included. This is a fact, and it is easily verifiable with a quick search using Google Scholar. It is also a fact that its frequency is smaller than, say, kilojoule. However I think this is understandable, by taking into account that kK are typical temperatures in Astrophysics, while typical energy scales of macroscopic matter under normal conditions are expressed in kilojoule per mole.

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