Absolute zero is -450.69 degrees fahrenheit. Is there a temperature limit for heat?

Answer 1

I suppose there is in a way. It would be limited to all the energy in the Universe. That is the most amount of energy that you could possibly have available to heat something with. It would be the temperature and the first instant of the Big Bang.

Answer 2

Absolute zero is not necessarily the coldest temperature that can be reached. It is simply the temperature in which liquid helium becomes a solid under zero atmospheres of pressure. True, helium is the last thing of all known matter compounds to freeze into solid form as the temp drops, but there are two things that point to colder temperatures.

1. There may yet be undiscovered elements or compounds that freeze at a lower temperature. This is highly unlikely but possible.

2. There may be physical methods to reduce the temperature of helium or any element or compound to below absolute zero regardless of whether or not it is already frozen. Think of it this way... Shove a thermometer into a candy bar. It is a solid. At room temp it will read what the current room temp is. Now place it in your freezer for a few hours. You bring it out and notice that the temperature on the thermometer is way lower... The candy bar still remains a solid. The University of Florida Gainesville holds the record for coldest temp ever recorded in the known universe. Their cryostat has gotten to within 3 millionths of a degree of absolute zero. I will not go into the gory details of how a cryostat works here. Let us suffice it to say their is much talk of going colder.

As for limit to heat there is no known limit and none foreseen on the horizon.

Answer 3

Think of heat as the average kinetic energy of the particles of any amount of matter; in other words, the average velocity of particles as they're shooting across empty space and bouncing off one another.

In response to eric h, it's called absolute zero for a reason. If the particles aren't moving at all (thus ZERO kinetic energy), there is NO heat.

The maximum heat would not necessarily be the heat required to break atoms, or even electrons, because for all we know, particles can be broken down infintesimally. Whatever the particles are, they can still have a velocity and contribute to the average KE of matter.

I suppose all the energy in the universe would be a valid answer... how hot was the first infinitely tiny span of time after the Big Bang occured? That might give you a rough estimate. ;P

Answer 4

There have been experimentation that tends to indicate that there indeed may be an upper limit for temperature. If I remember properly, it's something like 1.2 x 10^10 kelvins, where matter will break apart and expand with the addition of heat (keeping the tempature the same) at the same rate as the heat addition. It's not at the same level of certainty as absolute zero, but some scientists think that this might lead to a fourth law of thermodynamics.

Answer 5

Think of it this way. Cold does not exist. It is relative to that which it is compared. There is only heat or lack of it. IF there is a maximum temperature it would most likely be at that point where the thermal energy is so concentrated that the laws of nature dictate it must dispel itself. Take a thermometer to the next Big Bang and you may get a definitave answer.

Answer 6

Yes. But it's about 10^28 degrees. That's unimaginably hot. Hot enough to split protons and neutrons into a quark-gluon plasma. There are upper limits for all physical quantities which you can calculate from the fundamental physical quantities k (Boltzmann's constant), c (speed of light), G (Newton's universal gravitational constant) and h (Planck's constant). For instance the maximum rate at which any object can radiate energy is about 10^52 watts, and the maximum pressure possible is about 10^105 atmospheres.

Answer 7

That's a good question. As you pour more and more energy into a set of particles, you likely break the matter down to energetic subatomic particles. It's a challenge to contain those particles. But do you call it heat? How do you measure it? Exactly what is it that's hot?

Answer 8

the core of the earth and the sun are the only things that we know of that can reach millions of degrees so far but we can always find something else higher. so that's a yes and no.

Answer 9

To answer that, you REALLY have to get into the molecular composition of substances, and if you want to accept plasma as a 4th state of matter (which I personnally do) that's a whole nother ballpark...lol

Really, it depends on the material.
Sheena

Answer 10

without attempting to give numbers, theoretically, the maximum heat of any system is that temperature right before it explodes!