Of course you can’t reach absolute zero, but theoretically you could go below it, and reach a form of temperature that works opposite to how our temperature works in terms of energy, but… what would it look like? I’m having a little trouble visualizing it. Would my hand heat up or cool down, and would it the negative value just keep rising?
In: Physics
Negative temperatures are hot. Heat flows from -10K to -100K. And from -100K to +9999999999999999999K. 0K approached from the negative side would be the hottest things possible.
You’ve probably heard temperature is the average kinetic energy, but that’s just a truth for an ideal gas. The actual definition is the relationship between energy and entropy. Positive temperatures are where more energy means more entropy. At absolute zero, everything is in the same rest state. As you add energy, things start taking on a variety of higher energy states. This is more chaotic, higher entropy.
Negative temperatures rely on a maximum energy state existing. Once you pass a halfway point of maximum entropy, population inversion occurs. Adding more energy tends to put more things into the maximum energy state. This is more orderly, as things are now lining up into the same state again. Just a higher energy one. So more energy means less entropy, so temperature is negative. Everything being in a maximum energy state is clearly very hot, and in contact with anything that still has most of the stuff in a lower energy state (positive temperature), heat will flow to that.
Latest Answers