5 ms·
I thought you 0 kelvin was the lowest possible value on the kelvin scale. How come this post mention negative kelvin values? Is it not temperature?
by badrabbit 7y ago
I thought you 0 kelvin was the lowest possible value on the kelvin scale. How come this post mention negative kelvin values? Is it not temperature?
- Sharlin 7y agoThere are no negative kelvin values in the article. 10^-30 is a positive number.
- transitorykris 7y agoIf you're referring to "there will be a cosmological event horizon surrounding each observer, which will radiate Hawking radiation at a temperature of roughly 10-30 kelvin" this is a very tiny fraction: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10%5E-30 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10%5E-30
- badrabbit 7y agoI was referring to that, my mistake, and thank you very much!
- jandrewrogers 7y agoI don't see negative Kelvin in the article. I do see Kelvins with a negative exponent, which is just a positive value that asymptotically approaches zero.
- badrabbit 7y agoMy mistake, I thought that notation implied negative numbers. Thank you.
- johncarlosbaez 7y agoI was saying that the temperature of the Universe in the far future will be about 0.000000000000000000000000000001 kelvin, if our current theories are correct. This is 10^(-30) kelvin.
- c1ccccc1 7y agoInterestingly, there actually is such a concept as negative temperature. It applies to systems that have a maximum allowable energy as well as a minimum one. Such systems must be isolated from the outside world, and set up carefully, but it is possible to actually get negative temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature
- mnemonicsloth 7y agoI remember that from a class on lasers I took when I was an undergrad. All the physicists thought it was really cool and significant and argued about who was the first to see it coming. The engineers were totally unfazed. Whatever it takes to get the project working. And I was a would-be mathematician, so I asked whether temperature could be imaginary.
- Stupulous 7y agoDid you get a no or something more interesting?
- Stupulous 7y ago(I am asking for elaboration on what physicists and engineers have to say about imaginary temperatures if they didn't flatly dismiss the concept. I recognize it may read as snarky, but I really was just aiming for clever.)
- mnemonicsloth 7y agoNo problem. Basically the physicists thought I was winding them up and the engineers, notably including the prof, thought my priorities were all screwed up. I really did want to know the answer, but in retrospect they were both a little bit right.