The rate and extent to which chemical reactions occur

Classification of scales
There is a variety of kinds of temperature scales. It may be convenient to classify them as empirically and theoretically based. Empirical temperature scales are historically older, while theoretically based scales arose in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Empirical scales

Empirically based temperature scales rely directly on measurements of simple macroscopic physical properties of materials. For example, the length of a column of mercury, confined in a glass-walled capillary tube, is dependent largely on temperature and is the basis of the very useful mercury-in-glass thermometer. Such scales are valid only within convenient ranges of temperature. For example, above the boiling point of mercury, a mercury-in-glass thermometer is impracticable. Most materials expand with temperature increase, but some materials, such as water, contract with temperature increase over some specific range, and then they are hardly useful as thermometric materials. A material is of no use as a thermometer near one of its phase-change temperatures, for example, its boiling-point.
In spite of these limitations, most generally used practical thermometers are of the empirically based kind. Especially, it was used for calorimetry, which contributed greatly to the discovery of thermodynamics. Nevertheless, empirical thermometry has serious drawbacks when judged as a basis for theoretical physics. Empirically based thermometers, beyond their base as simple direct measurements of ordinary physical properties of thermometric materials, can be re-calibrated, by use of theoretical physical reasoning, and this can extend their range of adequacy.

Theoretical scales

Theoretically based temperature scales are based directly on theoretical arguments, especially those of kinetic theory and thermodynamics. They are more or less ideally realized in practically feasible physical devices and materials. Theoretically based temperature scales are used to provide calibrating standards for practical empirically-based thermometers.

Microscopic statistical mechanical scale

In physics, the internationally agreed conventional temperature scale is called the Kelvin scale. It is calibrated through the internationally agreed and prescribed value of the Boltzmann constant, referring to motions of microscopic particles, such as atoms, molecules, and electrons, a constituent in the body whose temperature is to be measured. In contrast with the thermodynamic temperature scale invented by Kelvin, the presently conventional Kelvin temperature is not defined through comparison with the temperature of a reference state of a standard body, nor in terms of macroscopic thermodynamics.
Apart from the absolute zero of temperature, the Kelvin temperature of a body in a state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium is defined by measurements of suitably chosen of its physical properties, such as have precisely known theoretical explanations in terms of the Boltzmann constant. That constant refers to chosen kinds of motion of microscopic particles in the constitution of the body. In those kinds of motion, the particles move individually, without mutual interaction. Such motions are typically interrupted by inter-particle collisions, but for temperature measurement, the motions are chosen so that, between collisions, the non-interactive segments of their trajectories are known to be accessible to accurate measurement. For this purpose, interparticle potential energy is disregarded.
In an ideal gas, and in other theoretically understood bodies, the Kelvin temperature is defined to be proportional to the average kinetic energy of non-interactively moving microscopic particles, which can be measured by suitable techniques. The proportionality constant is a simple multiple of the Boltzmann constant. If molecules, atoms, or electrons, is emitted from material and their velocities are measured, the spectrum of their velocities often nearly obeys a theoretical law called the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, which gives a well-founded measurement of temperatures for which the law holds. There have not yet been successful experiments of this same kind that directly use the Fermi–Dirac distribution for thermometry, but perhaps that will be achieved in the future.
The speed of sound in a gas can be calculated theoretically from the molecular character of the gas, from its temperature and pressure, and from the value of Boltzmann's constant. For a gas of known molecular character and pressure, this provides a relation between temperature and Boltzmann's constant. Those quantities can be known or measured more precisely than can the thermodynamic variables that define the state of a sample of water at its triple point. Consequently, taking the value of Boltzmann's constant as a primarily defined reference of exactly defined value, a measurement of the speed of sound can provide a more precise measurement of the temperature of the gas.
Measurement of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation from an ideal three-dimensional black body can provide an accurate temperature measurement because the frequency of maximum spectral radiance of black-body radiation is directly proportional to the temperature of the black body; this is known as Wien's displacement law and has a theoretical explanation in Planck's law and the Bose–Einstein law.
Measurement of the spectrum of noise-power produced by an electrical resistor can also provide accurate temperature measurement. The resistor has two terminals and is in effect a one-dimensional body. The Bose-Einstein law for this case indicates that the noise-power is directly proportional to the temperature of the resistor and to the value of its resistance and to the noise bandwidth. In a given frequency band, the noise-power has equal contributions from every frequency and is called Johnson noise. If the value of the resistance is known then the temperature can be found.

Macroscopic thermodynamic scale

Historically, till May 2019, the definition of the Kelvin scale was that invented by Kelvin, based on a ratio of quantities of energy in processes in an ideal Carnot engine, entirely in terms of macroscopic thermodynamics. That Carnot engine was to work between two temperatures, that of the body whose temperature was to be measured, and a reference, that of a body at the temperature of the triple point of water. Then the reference temperature, that of the triple point, was defined to be exactly 273.16 K. Since May 2019, that value has not been fixed by definition but is to be measured through microscopic phenomena, involving the Boltzmann constant, as described above. The microscopic statistical mechanical definition does not have a reference temperature.

Ideal gas

A material on which a macroscopically defined temperature scale may be based is the ideal gas. The pressure exerted by a fixed volume and mass of an ideal gas is directly proportional to its temperature. Some natural gases show so nearly ideal properties over suitable temperature range that they can be used for thermometry; this was important during the development of thermodynamics and is still of practical importance today. The ideal gas thermometer is, however, not theoretically perfect for thermodynamics. This is because the entropy of an ideal gas at its absolute zero of temperature is not a positive semi-definite quantity, which puts the gas in violation of the third law of thermodynamics. In contrast to real materials, the ideal gas does not liquefy or solidify, no matter how cold it is. Alternatively thinking, the ideal gas law, refers to the limit of infinitely high temperature and zero pressure; these conditions guarantee non-interactive motions of the constituent molecules.