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Absolute Zero isn't the coldest temperature anymore

http://news.discovery.com/earth/rec...ero-130104.html

Quote:

An object's temperature is a measure of how much its atoms move — the colder an object is, the slower the atoms are. At the physically impossible-to-reach temperature of zero kelvin, or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), atoms would stop moving. As such, nothing can be colder than absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.

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To generate negative temperatures, scientists created a system where atoms do have a limit to how much energy they can possess. They first cooled about 100,000 atoms to a positive temperature of a few nanokelvin, or billionth of a kelvin. They cooled the atoms within a vacuum chamber, which isolated them from any environmental influence that could potentially heat them up accidentally. They also used a web of laser beams and magnetic fields to very precisely control how these atoms behaved, helping to push them into a new temperature realm. "The temperatures we achieved are negative nanokelvin," Schneider told LiveScience.

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Negative temperatures could be used to create heat engines — engines that convert heat energy to mechanical work, such as combustion engines — that are more than 100-percent efficient, something seemingly impossible. Such engines would essentially not only absorb energy from hotter substances, but also colder ones. As such, the work the engine performed could be larger than the energy taken from the hotter substance alone.

Quote:

Negative temperatures might also help shed light on one of the greatest mysteries in science. Scientists had expected the gravitational pull of matter to slow down the universe's expansion after the Big Bang, eventually bringing it to a dead stop or even reversing it for a "Big Crunch." However, the universe's expansion is apparently speeding up, accelerated growth that cosmologists suggest may be due to dark energy, an as-yet-unknown substance that could make up more than 70 percent of the cosmos. In much the same way, the negative pressure of the cold gas the researchers created should make it collapse. However, its negative temperature keeps it from doing so. As such, negative temperatures might have interesting parallels with dark energy that may help scientists understand this enigma. Negative temperatures could also shed light on exotic states of matter, generating systems that normally might not be stable without them. "A better understanding of temperature could lead to new things we haven't even thought of yet," Schneider said. "When you study the basics very thoroughly, you never know where it may end."

Eh? Pretty neat eh

Wonder how it will impact the sciencey-type world

discuss or whatevs

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiskeyFace

Can I get a TL;DR?

scientists invented magic and everything is better now

Well, there goes my education.

That's pretty ****ing cool dude

So they invented like a superfridge or what?

I know it inherently can't, but couldn't science just stop questioning itself? First Pluto, now this, I feel like nothing is true. :sad:

Pfft, this is old news.

I learned that there were temperatures lower than absolute zero the first time I got in bed with my ex girlfriend.

Quote:

"Yet the gas is not colder than zero kelvin, but hotter. It is even hotter than at any positive temperature — the temperature scale simply does not end at infinity, but jumps to negative values instead."

wtf did I just read?

whoa

like, whoa

brb asking 10th grade chemistry teacher to change my grade

Whenever I read about scientists making these hyper cold matters, I think it is hilarious how someone thought "you know how temperature is just a measure of the kinetic energy of an atom? We could change that by shooting laser beams at it to physically slow it down."

Quote:

With positive temperatures, atoms more likely occupy low-energy states than high-energy states, a pattern known as Boltzmann distribution in physics. When an object is heated, its atoms can reach higher energy levels.

At absolute zero, atoms would occupy the lowest energy state. At an infinite temperature, atoms would occupy all energy states. Negative temperatures then are the opposite of positive temperatures — atoms more likely occupy high-energy states than low-energy states.

"The inverted Boltzmann distribution is the hallmark of negative absolute temperature, and this is what we have achieved," said researcher Ulrich Schneider, a physicist at the University of Munich in Germany. "Yet the gas is not colder than zero kelvin, but hotter. It is even hotter than at any positive temperature — the temperature scale simply does not end at infinity, but jumps to negative values instead."

That makes so little sense that it does.

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Originally Posted by MAC2322

That makes so little sense that it does.

*makes so little sense that it makes every sense

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Originally Posted by Skullivan

wtf did I just read?

Basically, scientists have proved Terry Pratchett's idea of there being a level of coldness that is not simply an absence of heat, but is in fact anti-heat (and causes water to anti-boil) correct. Read Equal Rites for an explanation that doesn't use Boltzmann curves

yeah, ill believe it after a few months.

That heat engine thing is crazy. Does that mean we'd actually be able to create energy rather than just transfer it from one state to another?

This shits cray cray. I swear one of these days we're going to find an alternate dimension kinda like the Dark World in A Link to the Past.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snipelfritz

This shits cray cray. I swear one of these days we're going to find an alternate dimension kinda like the Twilight Realm in Twilight Princess.

Fix'd ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skullivan

Fix'd ;)

:facepalm: