Mind screw

[cruelpupet]

Is there an absolute zero?
If so, is there an absolute hot too?
Are they both really the same?

[cheapie]

cold is the absence of heat. but heat isn't really the absence of cold. you can't add cold to something. you can only take away heat.

[DarkFury]

I add cold ice cubes to my hot soda and they cool it down. :)

Do the ice cubes warm up? Maybe.. but they just melt away I suppose. :)

[cruelpupet]

cold is the absence of heat. but heat isn't really the absence of cold. you can't add cold to something. you can only take away heat.

Cold is really a slow down of movement of molecules. So really what i was asking was if there was an upper limit to the speed of molecules moving. And if there is would it appear the same as absolute zero?

[The Happy Squirrel]

i think absolute heat would be light energy. or something along thsoe lines absolute zero is O degrees K <kelvin> which is zero molecular movement. Still unachieved in a laboratory i think but they have gotten close. so the extreme oppisite would have to be moving fast, which would thoeritcally be moleuclar light which is also theortical since matter must take up space and have mass

[zenbooty]

Is there an absolute zero?
In theory. But its most likely impossible to produce in the real world, due to the properties of heat, and how it natuarally flows from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration, much like osmosis.

If so, is there an absolute hot too?Not that we are aware of. There is no physical ceiling of how much heat energy a reaction may produce that science has found.
Are they both really the same?No, but they'd feel the same to your nerves.

[Airencracken]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/hot.html

Looks like the answer is: Maybe?

[ArkiStan]

C'mon. Lemme just have my Coolata® without my brain melting.

[InfiniteNothing]

Okay so in my head there should be a temperature where particles are moving so near the speed of light such that their gravity field is so dense with energy that as you add more energy, the energy gets dissipated as mass. That is, you have a particle, you put more energy in, it becomes two cooler particles. The effect would be like trying to heat up ice beyond 0 C. You add heat, the heat goes towards a phase change, not towards adding temperature. This temperature may very well be Planck's temperature.

I can also easily imagine negative temperatures (and pressures for that matter). It is not too difficult to imagine a particle in a potential well so deep that adding energy does not move it. Of course eventually you'd free it from the potential well and I'd call that point 0 K. Thus the original energy can be seen as heating a particle at negative K


Edit: did a quick google search and it seems like you can have a system where you add energy (temperature goes up) but entropy decreases (entropy decreasing generally means you get closer to absolute 0). So if your temperature goes up but you're getting closer to 0 you must... be... getting... less... negative?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/neg_temperature.html