4 ms·
Are you referring to the SMBC comic? http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535
by negativity 13y ago
Are you referring to the SMBC comic?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoYup, for some reason I was looking for xkcd comic.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThose two and Abstruse Goose are the trio I always check when looking for stuff like this.
- shurcooL 13y ago"Like maybe a minimum temperature or a maximum speed..." Max speed, sure. But minimum temperature? It's zero (Kelvin). Of course there's gonna be a minimum, this doesn't belong here.
- DrStalker 13y agoThere are temperatures lower than zero kelvin. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/neg_temperature.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/neg... for a technical description, http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146 http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-z... for a more readable article.
- cperciva 13y agoThere are temperatures lower than zero kelvin. There are negative temperatures, but I wouldn't characterize them as being "lower than zero kelvin". It would be more accurate to say that negative temperatures are "higher than $\infty$ kelvin".
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoValue that reaches maximum possible energy goes negative? Sounds suspiciously like integer overflow...
- cperciva 13y agoValue that reaches maximum possible energy goes negative? Maximum temperature, not maximum energy. Negative temperatures are even higher energies. The real issue here is that T is a dumb unit -- 1/T makes a lot more sense, and when you look at it that way, the trend is just "higher energies have lower 1/T" and passing through zero is entirely unremarkable.
- twobits 13y agoWhy is max speed (and min temp) an indication that (our) "universe [is] being optimized for good computation"?
- frinxor 13y agothis was a great one, thanks for the link.