The absolute scale is based not on a reference point like thefreezing point of water but on thermodynamics. No matter whetheryou are talking Kelvin or Rankine, the scale starts at the pointwhere no more heat can be removed from a system. You can alsoextrapolate from the Ideal gas law where zero would be the limit asthe product PV (pressure times volume) goes to zero.The third law states that the entropy of a pure crystal atabsolute zero is zero. Since there can be no physical system withlower entropy, all entropy thus has a positive value bydefinition.