Theoretically it would take infinitly long for everything to reach an equilibrium temperature.

Plus there would always be SOME activity - eg: Spontaneous decay of atoms, quantum effects, and general fluctuations.

___________________
ID THESE TRACKS PLEASE

IDing tracks is like having sex, the more you get the happier you'll be!!

Want to download a Digweed set? TA ID HUNT!

quote:

Originally posted by THE_Chris As far as I know you CANNOT reach absolute zero. Quantum Mechanics states that the entire system would collapse into a Giant Matter Wave. If this happened in full, the uncertainty principle would be violated. Hence, it cannot happen. They've cooled things to billionths of a degree above absolute zero by confining the particles inbetween various laser beams to 'squeeze' them together and effectivly slow their motion - decreasing their energy and thus lowering the temperature. You get all sorts of weird effects at those temperatures. Bose Einstein Condensation, particles falling out of the system, quantum tunnelling etc. Its all pretty simple really.

so, if everything just blows up?

hm, i'm tinking of matrix then.. history repeats it self? so, star trek etc. can never happen? cause we experiment with this thing and yeah, everything just blows up and we have to start over again..

my physics teacher, the fucking gimp, has loads of random facts, 1 of them was that the speed of light has nothing on some high energy cosmic rays, the most energised yet discovered takes something like 30 seconds to cross the Milky Way (a few thousand light years across)

and on the absolute zero, if it were reached, electrons would cease to spin & the body would discintegrate(sp.?) as someone said

quote:

Originally posted by THE_Chris As far as I know you CANNOT reach absolute zero. Quantum Mechanics states that the entire system would collapse into a Giant Matter Wave. If this happened in full, the uncertainty principle would be violated. Hence, it cannot happen. They've cooled things to billionths of a degree above absolute zero by confining the particles inbetween various laser beams to 'squeeze' them together and effectivly slow their motion - decreasing their energy and thus lowering the temperature. You get all sorts of weird effects at those temperatures. Bose Einstein Condensation, particles falling out of the system, quantum tunnelling etc. Its all pretty simple really.

Ya you are right. My prof once said that scientists reached something like 0.0000001 degrees kelvin.

However, Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle is still a theory and it can still be disproved so may be one day abs zero may be possible. never say never right?

another tidbit on the light speed tangent. scientists have already been able to send something faster than the speed of light. they sent a radio wave(i think) through some substance and some of the wave got to the reciever(a foot away or something) faster than light travels.

i know that what im saying is extremely vague in the details but thats because its 3:31am and i cant remember worth shyte. but if you search around youll be able to find an article on it. and i believe i saw it in Scientific American.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by jinxed84 another tidbit on the light speed tangent. scientists have already been able to send something faster than the speed of light. they sent a radio wave(i think) through some substance and some of the wave got to the reciever(a foot away or something) faster than light travels. i know that what im saying is extremely vague in the details but thats because its 3:31am and i cant remember worth shyte. but if you search around youll be able to find an article on it. and i believe i saw it in Scientific American.

I've read that photons "Communicate" between them randomly at a speed at least 10,000 times the speed of light, which is possible using quantum physics I guess...

___________________
Check My Music

Ya... waves have a group velocity and a phase velocity. One of them is measured by dw/dk (derivative of angular frequency with respect to wavenumber), and the other is measured by delta w / delta k (one divided by the other in an infinitesimal time frame.)

I cant remember which is which, but one of them travels at a speed faster than light.... just that it carries no information, so it doesnt violate the Lorentz Transformations, Relativity, etc.

___________________
ID THESE TRACKS PLEASE

IDing tracks is like having sex, the more you get the happier you'll be!!

Want to download a Digweed set? TA ID HUNT!