3 ms·
This result, described today in Science1, marks the gas’s transition from just above absolute zero to a few billionths of a Kelvin below absolute zero. Correct
by michaelochurch 12y ago
This result, described today in Science1, marks the gas’s transition from just above absolute zero to a few billionths of a Kelvin below absolute zero.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this mean that the gas molecules (at near-0K from negative) were extraordinarily hot? My understanding is that -1/T is the "true measure", ergo super-low negatives are, in fact, "absolute hot".
Does anyone know what are the thermodynamic properties of negative temperatures? For example, a pin-sized blackbody at 10^9 K would probably kill everyone on earth if it remained at that temperature. Would that apply to macroscopic objects at negative temperatures (if that were even possible, and if blackbody mechanics make sense in such states)?
- abecedarius 12y agoI believe so: to keep a thing at negative temperature while it's in thermal contact with us, you'd need to keep supplying power, just as you need to power a lightbulb. I didn't read the OP, but a familiar example of negative temperature is the population inversion in a laser.
- sampo 12y agoSystems at negative temperature are, in a way, hotter than infinite temperature. Yet, the contain much less energy than the same system at a very large (or approaching infinite) temperature would contain. They are, after all, created in a lab, so their energy content is limited by how much electricity the lab equipments has consumed.