I don’t understand how atoms that are in the “negative tempretures” have 0 entropy while being insanely hot. I also dont get how negative temperatures are hotter than infinity if (planck’s temperature forbids this; dont really know if it does). Please explain!
In: Physics
It comes from the proper definition of temperature.
Usually we think that ading more energy to the thing makes it hotter. This is good enough for most situations.
But this is not how temperature actually works. When you add energy to a thing you will also increase entropy in the thing. The rigorous definition of temperature comes from the relation of how much the entropy increases when energy is added.
Well most of the time adding energy increases entropy. It is possible to build things that behave the opposite way. When you add energy to this thing the entropy in it decreases. According to the definition of temperature this is negative temperature on kelvin scale.
The way this works is that normally the particles can just go to higher energy states when you add energy. But in this system there is some ceiling. So when you add energy you will just put more atoms to their maximum state, more atoms at same state means less entropy. Also more atoms at maximum state means they really want to give that energy away so it heats up anything it touces and is “really hot”.
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