On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 08:09:50PM +0100, Dafydd Harries wrote: > On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 08:24:43PM +0200, Martin F. Krafft wrote: > > also sprach Steve M. Robbins (on Sat, 07 Jul 2001 01:54:25PM -0400): > > > > nonono, it is physically impossible for *anything* to go colder than > > > > 0K *because* all particles stop moving. kinetic energy (i.e. > > > > temperature) doesn't care about the sign of the velocity (i.e. the > > > > direction) since it's squared anyway. > > > > > > For a system to have negative kinetic energy, > > > the particles just need to have imaginary speed... > > > > i do admit that i am not a genious in particle physics, so could you > > please elaborate? have negative kelvin temperatures been reached? > > usually, i would say no and not believe anything else, but you never > > know with the quantum stuff going on. > > > > and imaginary speed... are you talking irrational numbers? > > A lot of maths is based around them, and they are useful for many things (in > maths). For example, what are the solutions to the equation
... and physics, and... > But no, negative kelvin temperatures have not been reached, to the best of my > knowledge. I don't think that 0 K (how are you supposed to abbreviate Kelvin > without making it look like kilo) has been reached, but some people have > gotten close. 0 K should not be reached for security reasons ;-)) And Kelvin is "K", kilo is "k". -billy. -- Philipp Meier o-matic GmbH Gesch�ftsf�hrer Pfarrer-Wei�-Weg 16-18 Tel.: +49-(0)700-66284236 89077 Ulm
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