Absolute Zero

[Will H]

I'm pretty sure that attempting to reach absoloute zero is going to be simelar to reaching the speed of light. We can get closer and closer, but we will never ever reach it.

 

 

 

Oh well, interesting nevertheless.

[TotalTalker]

I'm pretty sure that attempting to reach absoloute zero is going to be simelar to reaching the speed of light. We can get closer and closer, but we will never ever reach it.

 

 

 

Oh well, interesting nevertheless.

 

 

 

Its not about getting the exact speed for the speed of light, because it doesnt really take much to go from, say for example, 5 mph to 6 mph, but absolute zero is measured in lower units, its in decimals, which is hard to get exact.[/b]

[liquidsky]

 

..but absolute zero is measured in lower units, its in decimals, which is hard to get exact.[/b]

 

 

 

what do you mean by this ? absolute zero is at 0K, exactly

[The Real ET]

I'm pretty sure that attempting to reach absoloute zero is going to be simelar to reaching the speed of light. We can get closer and closer, but we will never ever reach it.

 

 

 

Oh well, interesting nevertheless.

 

 

 

With Absolute Zero we have to cool something to stop the constant, random movement of it's atoms. It's always easier to stop something then to make something move (if the starting and end points are the opposite), so I say why not? I think both are possible, but we'd probably get to 0 K faster.

[happybappy]

Interesting. Wonder if they'll ever get it to a theoretical 0 deg. Kelvin.

 

 

 

Okay, first off, UP THE IRONS!

 

 

 

Okay, now that that's out of my system, on topic...

 

Don't they say space is absoulute zero? And how do we have the technology to measure this stuff? And yeah, I find this stuff really interesting.

 

 

 

Space is mostly vaccum and temperature is a property of matter. So, no particles, no temperature. But for the very few particles there are in deep space (something like one per meter cubed or something of that rediculous sparsity) there is always a background radiation of microwaves to keep kinetic energy of those particles above absolute zero.

 

 

 

My incling is absolute zero is a mythical figure never observed and never will be anytime soon. It's more a mathematical backtrack from what we do know into what's theoretical. The furthur back we push to the limit, the more we realise about our correct or not so correct extrapolation of the figure.

 

 

 

I thought absolute zero was impossible.

[warri0r45]

Interesting. Wonder if they'll ever get it to a theoretical 0 deg. Kelvin.

 

 

 

Okay, first off, UP THE IRONS!

 

 

 

Okay, now that that's out of my system, on topic...

 

Don't they say space is absoulute zero? And how do we have the technology to measure this stuff? And yeah, I find this stuff really interesting.

 

 

 

Space is mostly vaccum and temperature is a property of matter. So, no particles, no temperature. But for the very few particles there are in deep space (something like one per meter cubed or something of that rediculous sparsity) there is always a background radiation of microwaves to keep kinetic energy of those particles above absolute zero.

 

 

 

My incling is absolute zero is a mythical figure never observed and never will be anytime soon. It's more a mathematical backtrack from what we do know into what's theoretical. The furthur back we push to the limit, the more we realise about our correct or not so correct extrapolation of the figure.

 

 

 

I thought absolute zero was impossible.

 

 

 

Perhaps. Perhaps not. One day we may break it. Unless, of course, there is a law prohibiting it. Best to ask someone else here.

[liquidsky]

 

Perhaps. Perhaps not. One day we may break it. Unless, of course, there is a law prohibiting it. Best to ask someone else here.

 

 

 

As already mentioned on this thread, current physics theory suggests that it is impossible to reach 0K.

[doomy]

I wonder what would actually happen.

 

Pretty weird to find out...

 

Lots of cool theorys going on lol.

[Voldmort0]

I don't understand half of it, cool to know how it affects the atoms so badly :o

[BlueTear]

Perhaps. Perhaps not. One day we may break it. Unless, of course, there is a law prohibiting it. Best to ask someone else here.

Best way to illustrate why it's impossible is to picture something at the temperature of 1K. Want to take this down to 0K. Alright, you manage to cool it by an order of ten; it is now 0.1K.

 

 

 

Hawtness. Well, not really, but you get the idea. So you cool it by an order of ten again! 0.01K. Hmz... You've cooled it by an order of 100 since you started, yet it isn't 0K.

 

 

 

You can keep this up indefinitely, and you'll never hit 0.

[warri0r45]

Perhaps. Perhaps not. One day we may break it. Unless, of course, there is a law prohibiting it. Best to ask someone else here.

Best way to illustrate why it's impossible is to picture something at the temperature of 1K. Want to take this down to 0K. Alright, you manage to cool it by an order of ten; it is now 0.1K.

 

 

 

Hawtness. Well, not really, but you get the idea. So you cool it by an order of ten again! 0.01K. Hmz... You've cooled it by an order of 100 since you started, yet it isn't 0K.

 

 

 

You can keep this up indefinitely, and you'll never hit 0.

 

 

 

Thanks BlueTear and liquidsky. I was ignorant of not only that it was already mentioned on this thread, but also of the fact that it is theoretically impossible. Always great to learn something new. :)

[The Real ET]

Why would we always have to cool it in an order of ten though?

[Death_By_Pod]

 

Thanks BlueTear and liquidsky. I was ignorant of not only that it was already mentioned on this thread, but also of the fact that it is theoretically impossible. Always great to learn something new. :)

 

 

 

The quarks that make up matter sit in energy levels (like electrons). These energy levels are quantised with the lowest energy level being greater then 0. So really if a quark is in it's lowest state it's always going to to have energy associated with it.

 

 

 

Thermodynamically it would require more and more energy for a refrigerator to decrease the temperature of an object. It basically follows a 1/T relationship, so when T approaches 0, the energy required to cool something goes to infinity.

[meol]

Entropy always increases with time until the system reaches equilibrium, right? Then, after enough time (yep, a long long one) all the mass in the universe will posses the same energy (though higher than 0K). It'd be almost impossible to cool something even further in that state, so shouldn't that temperature be absolute zero?

[No_OnE]

Why would we always have to cool it in an order of ten though?

 

It wouldn't matter. Take the 1K again and cool it by an order of 1,000. You have .001K now. You could take any number and reduce it based on that number and you would never reach zero. It would be different if we could directly subtract temperature but I'm fairly sure we can't.

[The Real ET]

Why would we always have to cool it in an order of ten though?

 

It wouldn't matter. Take the 1K again and cool it by an order of 1,000. You have .001K now. You could take any number and reduce it based on that number and you would never reach zero. It would be different if we could directly subtract temperature but I'm fairly sure we can't.

 

 

 

But why does it have to be done like that? -.-

[Rebdragon]

But why does it have to be done like that? -.-

 

It's just a simpler way of explaining it when getting into very small or very big numbers. It's kind of irrelevant to try and complicate things with pointless details when you can get the same point across just by talking in magnitudes of 10.

[The Real ET]

But why does it have to be done like that? -.-

 

It's just a simpler way of explaining it when getting into very small or very big numbers. It's kind of irrelevant to try and complicate things with pointless details when you can get the same point across just by talking in magnitudes of 10.

 

 

 

I know that. I meant why does it have to go down like that. Why can't we just nip out the last 0.00001K?

[No_OnE]

But why does it have to be done like that? -.-

 

It's just a simpler way of explaining it when getting into very small or very big numbers. It's kind of irrelevant to try and complicate things with pointless details when you can get the same point across just by talking in magnitudes of 10.

 

 

 

I know that. I meant why does it have to go down like that. Why can't we just nip out the last 0.00001K?

 

I can't really explain it. It's just that the way you cool something down is by introducing it to something colder than it is. For instance, in your house. When you turn the temperature down with the thermostat, you aren't really turning down the temperature. You're actually telling the system to add cold air to your home which mixes with the warmer air. The temperature then averages out to a cooler temperature. To reach absolute zero, you would have to introduce an object at 10 degrees kelvin to an object to an object of the same mass with a temperature of -10 degrees kelvin. But an object of that temperature doesn't exist (as far as we know).

 

 

 

It would be pretty interesting if we could just get rid of that last .0001K but we just can't.

[The Real ET]

But why does it have to be done like that? -.-

 

It's just a simpler way of explaining it when getting into very small or very big numbers. It's kind of irrelevant to try and complicate things with pointless details when you can get the same point across just by talking in magnitudes of 10.

 

 

 

I know that. I meant why does it have to go down like that. Why can't we just nip out the last 0.00001K?

 

I can't really explain it. It's just that the way you cool something down is by introducing it to something colder than it is. For instance, in your house. When you turn the temperature down with the thermostat, you aren't really turning down the temperature. You're actually telling the system to add cold air to your home which mixes with the warmer air. The temperature then averages out to a cooler temperature. To reach absolute zero, you would have to introduce an object at 10 degrees kelvin to an object to an object of the same mass with a temperature of -10 degrees kelvin. But an object of that temperature doesn't exist (as far as we know).

 

 

 

It would be pretty interesting if we could just get rid of that last .0001K but we just can't.

 

 

 

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

[liquidsky]

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

 

 

 

People get low temperatures in the lab to investigate the properties of matter at near 0K - like superconductivity/perfect diamagnetism (now over 20 metals), superfluidity, bose-einstein condensates (as already discussed in this thread), and other quantum effects.

 

Not because they believe that somehow they will reach exactly 0K.

[Rebdragon]

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

 

No, no... it's pretty much accepted that we can't reach 0k :-s .

[The Real ET]

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

 

No, no... it's pretty much accepted that we can't reach 0k :-s .

 

 

 

Really? I haven't really heard anything about Absolute Zero outside this thread for awhile, but last I heard there were still people trying?

[Rebdragon]

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

 

No, no... it's pretty much accepted that we can't reach 0k :-s .

 

 

 

Really? I haven't really heard anything about Absolute Zero outside this thread for awhile, but last I heard there were still people trying?

 

0K is the absense of any and all heat energy (it's very different from 0 Celsius or 0 Farenheit), and you can't reach it because there's always at least a little heat energy in the area. If you read back through the thread it's explained pretty well, I believe :P .

[The Real ET]

I bet they're developing a way. If it was that simple so many people wouldn't be trying so hard to reach 0K.

 

No, no... it's pretty much accepted that we can't reach 0k :-s .

 

 

 

Really? I haven't really heard anything about Absolute Zero outside this thread for awhile, but last I heard there were still people trying?

 

0K is the absense of any and all heat energy (it's very different from 0 Celsius or 0 Farenheit), and you can't reach it because there's always at least a little heat energy in the area. If you read back through the thread it's explained pretty well, I believe :P .

 

 

 

I know what Absolute Zero is... I meant I hadn't heard anything about it being proven/dis-proven lately. I've been in this thread almost the whole time, so I have read all of it. =P