Absolute Zero ?

Question

What is absolute zero exactly, and is it impossible to reach? If one were to magnify this temperature to a massive scale, and you, in part, stop time?

What are the effects of things exposed to near absolute zero temperatures?

I've read that if you were to theoretically reach absolute zero, the molecules would collapse on each other. Does this have anything to do with black holes?

Answer 1

Absolute zero is the lowest possible temperature. In case of atoms, molecules and solids it is the temperature at which there is no thermal energy in the system. It can not be reached because a finite temperature bath of finite temperature would have to be coupled to an infinite temperature bath at absolute zero to get the finite bath to absolute zero. Obviously there is nothing like an infinite something of anything...

Atoms, molecules and solids would not collapse if they could be brought to absolute zero because their thermal energy has nothing to do with their stability in the first place. An atoms zero point energy is trillion times greater than its energy at even modest cryogenic temperature. If you were to subtract another trillionth from its rest energy, it wouldn't even notice.

What you have heard might be about Bose-Einstein-condensation. But that has nothing to do with atoms collapsing but with wave-functions of bosons overlapping. Totally different subject, although very interesting and absolutely counterintuitive, yet observed.

Temperature and time are related but in a very different way than you might imagine. A lot of formulas in physics can be changed to other valid formulas by replacing temperature T with imaginary time i*t. It turns out that quantum mechanics and thermodynamics are cousins because wave functions can be understood as random walks of a classical particle in a field of infinite background energy. But that is a classical analogy which ends at the Planck scale where it probably originates.

Answer 2

Here's an introductory page concerning absolute zero: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/temperature.html

It should answer a few of your questions. However, just to clarify, black holes are caused by high concentrations of mass with sufficient gravitational force to pull in even light. This is just a brief description and I don't really know how to put it into very understandable layman's terms, so here's a site that can provide an introductory explanation of black holes: http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html

Answer 3

Know one knows for sure because scientists have not reached it yet. All we know is that when we do reach it, molecules and atoms will stop moving. I am not sure about it stopping time. I don't know what temperature has to do with time, but it is an excellent question. You have sparked my interest, so I guess we will just have to wait and see if scientists actually eventually reach it.

Answer 4

if black holes could suck the energy out of the atoms then the atoms would have absolutly no temperature left.(zero degrees absolute).
If the substance of space would be frozen so will time.

Answer 5

Every thing is moving. Its when the Atoms of something completely stop moving