Maximum Temperature (NOT TPT)

  • billion57
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    If the maximum speed is the speed of light, and temperature is the measure of the speed of particles, then shouldn't there be a maximum temperature, since particles can only move with a speed less than light?

     

    Can someone figure this out?

  • Sergeant_Starfruit
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    If there's a max temperature for the universe then it must be pretty high. In 2009 scientists fired Tungsten atoms at each other at almost the speed of light and it got up to 200 billion degrees!

  • tian110796
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    Firstly, temperature is the measure of the amount of vibration the particles have, not necessarily its speed. 

    Edit: I did not see that Ctrl + S sends the thing.

    So far, the maximum temperature is only a technical limit because as things get hotter, the faster it tends to cool, which means heating something would always come to an equilibrium where the rate of heating is the same as its rate of cooling, where its temperature would no longer increase.

  • Shriek
    12th Aug 2012 Banned 0 Permalink
    This post is hidden because the user is banned
  • Citopow
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    The maximum speed is not the speed of light. Recent studies show that neutrinos are extremely fast, faster than light.

  • Niven
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink
    @Citopow (View Post)
    http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/06/once-again-physicists-debunk.html

    Once Again, Physicists Debunk Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos:

    Five different teams of physicists have now independently verified that elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos do not travel faster than light.

  • boxmein
    12th Aug 2012 Former Staff 1 Permalink
    @billion57 (View Post)
    Temperature is expressed by the "wobble" of particles, not their actual speeds. They wobble because they have much energy stored inside.
  • dnerd
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    If you were to put all of the energy in the universe into the smallest possible particle, an electron (there are smaller particles, but that cannot exist on their own.) then that particle would have the largest possible energy, expressed in heat.

  • billion57
    12th Aug 2012 Member 0 Permalink

    They have to wobble with a certain speed, don't they?

    For example, as a particle's temperature reaches absolute zero (-273.15 C), they shake with less and less speed.