Has anybody reached absolute zero?

I just ran my AWD Forester off the icy curve in my long driveway. By the time the AAA truck found me, I felt as tho I had reached 0˚ K.

No.

No degree sign needed. For example, the normal temperature for humans is 310 kelvins.

I had no atomic movement and my substance was really cold.

Stuck on a ski lift in Killington, for 40 minutes, I’m pretty sure we came close. The kelvins were leaving in protest!!

@bythebay; The kelvins have now amassed on both my decks, having gotten bored with Killington, I guess.

@syz interestingly enough that article mentions that kelvins are now the most common unit of measurement… I thought the world still used Celsius, with the US still using Fahrenheit…

Yeah…. with 7 decimal places of zeros or something close to that.

Not possible – you have the CBR even in intergalactic space, but it felt like that in Chicago a couple weeks back.

We were -25° here a couple weeks ago. Does that count???

I can tell you that living in Minnesota, I have experienced between 50 and 60 below first hand, with windchills coming close to 100 below Fahrenheit and it has convinced me of one thing. if there is a hell, it is not fire and brimstone, it is probably zero Kelvin. For those of you who haven’t experienced something like this, imagine if the liquid in your eyeballs froze instantaneously the second you walked out of your house. When air that cold hits your lungs, it feels like you’re breathing in liquid nitrogen. Of course, I’m spoiled now…if it gets below 10 below these days it’s an event (which I celebrate by staying inside).

Wouldn’t Absolut Zero be a great name for a lower calorie vodka?

If I remember correctly Kelvin theorized but never reached. I take it you mean on earth. Probes perhaps could reach it in space.

no one knows what distant space is like

@steve6- The background microwave radiation (from event one, TBB!) keeps space at about a healthy 3 kelvins.

@AstroChuck – I think the Absout Zero is a great idea, right up there with a low calorie version of Thousand Island dressing called “500 Island”.

I forget which commedian I stole that one from, Mitch Hedberg maybe?

It has never been reached, although researchers have come to within 700 billionths of a unit Kelvin, and it is generally presumed to be theoretically impossible to reach, thanks to that naughty second law of thermodynamics. Disregarding the quantum motion of all atoms at any temperature, the entropy of a substance at absolute zero would be zero, making it thermodynamically unfavorable. Taking it into account, the entropy would simply approach a constant value, meaning there would be no thermodynamic impulse for the substance to cool to that temperature. At least, that is my interpretation, as informed by this infallible source.

I would say that it is impossible to reach on earth and in space someone above mentioned that microwave radiation keeps everything on the move. So I would say no. But that is just me.

I have reached absolute zero in my checking account many times…..........

So what? I’ve gone below absolute zero in mine.

And you thought going absolute zero was impossible.

I remember watching a show called “Race for absolute zero”... it was pretty entertaining/informative… weird things happen to matter the colder it gets… i remember seeing liquid literally go “around” the glass container… I recommend this documentary…

0 K wasn’t reached yet but in the tunnel of LHC the temperature was just 3 C above 0 K

nice to see the group so cavalier about the unknown distant space

Since heat, as a form of energy, moves from hot to cold, any atom near absolute 0 would absorb heat from energy around it. In the case of absolute 0 there would have to be no kinetic or potential energy anywhere in the universe. As long as matter exists, this is not possible.

Absolute zero an abstract idea.

@Waffle Technically, there can be other matter and energy in the universe. The system and the surroundings simply have to be separated, to avoid transmission of thermal energy by an averaging of kinetic energies, and that separation has to be big enough that it is unlikely that any of the infrared (or other) photons emitted by the surroundings will enter the system.

@Jayne If any other matter exists in the universe, gravitational potential energy would exist. In that case, the two peices of matter would have some kinetic energy until they meet.

Kinetic energy is not equivalent to temperature; if the substance is a solid, temperature refers to the vibrational kinetic energy of individual atoms, not the overall kinetic energy of the solid.

Reaching absolute zero is against the laws of thermodynamics. If two objects interact, heat flows between them, so theoretically even if something was at absolute zero for a moment, other objects around it would touch it and radiate heat. It is possible to get something to within a billionth of a degree to absolute zero though.