3 ms·
No, it does not. In a closed system if you add enough energy the temperature will eventually become negative (after ‘passing through’ +inf). As you reach a sta
by jleahy 5y ago
No, it does not. In a closed system if you add enough energy the temperature will eventually become negative (after ‘passing through’ +inf).
As you reach a state where almost all particles are in their maximum energy states (this is assuming there is one) you will slowly approach negative zero (which again you can never quite attain).
Statistical mechanics can be confusing at first.
- crdrost 5y agoI am not sure about your first statement... In particular even with a quantum non-interacting gas with particle-in-a-box modes, the Hamiltonian is not bounded from above and there is no reason to expect a negative temperature, no? There exist systems, like spin systems, where energy is bounded from above and so entropy decreases as you add energy, which is the definition of negative temperature... But I find it dubious that every system is such, unless I am missing something nonintuitive about say relativistic effects or so
- jleahy 5y agoNo you're quite right, that's why I said "...maximum energy states (this is assuming there is one)". Of course with no upper bound on energy this isn't possible, that's the definition straight up, just like you say.
- civilized 5y agoSo what happens if I stick my hand in a negative temperature state of matter?
- kibwen 5y agoWikipedia article on the concept of negative temperature: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature
- adhesive_wombat 5y agoThe critical bit for me: > This is only possible if the number of high energy states is limited. For a system of ordinary (quantum or classical) particles such as atoms or dust, the number of high energy states is unlimited (particle momenta can in principle be increased indefinitely). Some systems, however [...], have a maximum amount of energy that they can hold, and as they approach that maximum energy their entropy actually begins to decrease. In my (limited) understanding, it's somewhat like the phenomenon that a communication channel bit error rate over 0.5 actually results in less information loss (imagine a BER of 1: that's just a NOT gate). If your energy states are limited, adding energy actual brings you closer to an ordered state (that of everything being in the highest state). But, this is not a situation you get by simply heating something up with a blowtorch, no matter how hot it is.
- madengr 5y ago
- dezmou 5y agoThis is simply reaching the integer overflow of our simulated world