That’s basically my question. For some reason, I don’t recall if there is a name for this, but I’m wondering if there is a maximum temperature that can be reached? And is that temperature equal 100 on the Kelvin Scale? For some reason, I don’t think the Kelvin scale measures anything but absolute zero… and if matter ceases to move at absolute zero, does matter break apart and “vaporize” at the heat extreme?
Cecil has the answer
Si
Not sure of the answer, but don’t trust the info in the link.
I think there must be a typo in the first section because 1032K is about 759 celsius. Not sure what that is in Farenheit. I suspect the author means 10 to the power of 32 K.
hmmm. seems I am only 19 years too late for this question!
Which link are you referring to, Walker?
Kelvin is the same thing as Celcius. It’s just calibrates 0 to absolute zero instead of the freezing point of water.
That’s what Cecil has, rendered in the more ASCII-friendly 10^32 K notation. (Here, you can use [sup] tags to create 10[sup]32[/sup], but beware copy-and-paste.)
This doesn’t make sense to me. Assuming the concept of temperature can still be used at 10[sup]32[/sup] degrees, what happens when something goes from .999…999 C to .999…9991 C?
I realize it may take a lot of energy to do that, but when it’s converted almost completely to mass instead of speed can the temperature be said to rise?
ETA: C as in light, not Celcius
Well, bluntly speaking, nobody really knows. These ‘Planck units’ are generally where our understanding of physics breaks down, and the answers our equations give don’t make any real sense any more – basically, it’s where general relativity and quantum mechanics bump their heads and get into ugly fights calling each other names and collapsing space-time into ugly singularities and shit (the latter is what defines the Planck units, more or less: if you stuff an amount of energy equivalent to the Planck energy into the space given by the Planck length, you get a very tiny black hole, that’s also very, very hot – in fact, Planck temperature kinda hot).
So it’s not really true to say that the Planck temperature is the highest possible one, since, once a full theory of quantum gravity is found, it might well be the case that it allows for even higher temperatures (general relativity on its own doesn’t have any limit to temperature at all, for example).
However, in the way we use the word ‘temperature’ in every day parlance, I would say that it gets meaningless far earlier, since we usually talk about the temperature of stuff, and at some point, stuff just doesn’t stay stuff any longer, and instead becomes something called a quark-gluon plasma, where not even the neutrons and protons that make up the atomic nuclei in everyday matter really exist any more, and that’s around 2x10[sup]12[/sup]K – orders of magnitude short of Planck temperature, sure, but still hotter than hell, if one presumes that hell is made up of baryonic matter.
No. 100 K is -173.15 °C (-279.67 °F), which is very cold.
Notice that no degree symbol (°) is used for the kelvin scale. The temperature 100 K is referred to as “one hundred kelvins” for consistency with the other SI units (like meters, grams, etc.).
There isn’t a Kelvin scale. Kelvins are units unto themselves, like inches or grams. And they are one of the 7 fundamental units of the SI. There are Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, marked off in degrees. The size of a Celsius degree is one Kelvin, and has been for 20 or so years IIRC.
I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I shouldn’t have repeated the terminology used in the OP.
That being said, what make temperatures expressed in terms of °C and °F “scales”? Simply the starting point? Because they certainly have no more upper bound than that of kelvins.
In any event, when the unit was first established, kelvins were indeed expressed as “°K”.
And so far as I know, the size of a kelvin and the size of a °C have always been exactly equal, certainly for far longer than the last 20 years.
Are you questioning The Perfect Master’s conclusions?
I think he was referring to the link in post #2.
Minor nitpick, but the freezing point of water is not a defining (i.e. fixed) point on the Celsius scale (or any temperature scale, for that matter). Furthermore, The freezing point of water is no longer defined to be 0 °C.
I disagree. In common usage, “kelvin scale” refers to the thermodynamic temperature scale. NIST also uses this terminology (see this). The ITS-90 is another temperature scale that uses the kelvin as its unit. As a side note, the defined quantities are arbitrary on both scales. Basically, absolute zero was decided to be 0 K, and the TP of water was decided to be 273.16 K.[sup]1[/sup] On the thermodynamic temperature scale, two points make a straight line, and all other temperatures are based on these two definitions.
[sup]1[/sup] [sub]Theoretically, they could have defined them to be anything. As an example, they could have defined absolute zero to be 0 K and the TP of water to be 24 K. But they chose 273.16 K for the TP of water so that it would closely match the scales that were already being used at the time.[/sub]
We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of the first time I know of this question being considered in a popular essay. Issac Asimov wrote “The Height of Up” as one of his columns in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for October 1959. It was reprinted in his collections *View from a Height *and Asimov on Physics.
He comes to a conclusion that there is no theoretical maximum in either a Newtonian or Einsteinian universe. He doesn’t consider quantum mechanical principles. Half Man Half Wit is correct that the Planck temperature is not yet substantiated by any theory that puts QM and relativity together.
Interestingly, he comes up with a realistic maximum of 3.6 x 10[sup]12[/sup], just about where **Half Man Half Wit **puts it, though he has to use atoms broken down to protons and neutrons since he didn’t know about quarks or gluons.
So that’s the real height of up, not what that dumbass Cecil said. 
“The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water. This definition refers to water having the isotopic composition defined exactly by the following amount of substance ratios: 0.000 155 76 mole of 2H per mole of 1H, 0.000 379 9 mole of 17O per mole of 16O, and 0.002 005 2 mole of 18O per mole of 16O.” [I think I got this from “Le Systeme international d’unites”, 8th edition, 2006, from the Bureau International des poids et mesures, Organization interfouvernementale de la Convention du Metre, in its English translation]
The International Committee on Weights and Measures, in 1989, redefined the Celsius scale as having 0 °C at 273.15 K, with degrees equal in size to kelvins. 273.15 K is by definition 0 °C, and the numerical offset between kelvins and degrees Celsius is 273.15.
Prior to 1989 the Celsius scale was defined as having 0 °C at the ice point of water, and 100 °C at the boiling point of water, at one standard atmosphere of 101.325 Pa.
Note that 273.16 and 273.15 both appear here. The 0.01 K difference between them is approximately the difference between the triple point and the ice point of water. The triple point refers to a three phase system of water while the ice point refers to a three phase system of water and air. I am a little hazy on this but it looks to me like the Committee essentially decreed that the ice point, for the purposes of pre-1989 definitions, is exactly 0.01 K below the triple point. I gather that ice point realizations have always had enough slop in them to justify this convenience.
Crafter_Man, your reference to NIST usage and particularly your reference to ITS is interesting. Come to think of it, the TS in ITS stands for “Temperature Scale”. However, ITS-90 is arguably a little dodgy because they really are setting up a scale that is fixed at certain reference points like TPW and the Tin and Zinc melts (or freezes). So, their kelvins aren’t exactly the same thing as the SI kelvin.
Maybe there is a case for saying that there are true thermodynamic temperatures, and kelvins to measure them with, and two points make a straight line, or really one point (just like with kilograms nobody had to decide that things with no mass are at “0 kg”), and true thermodynamic temperatures are not defined in terms of a scale.
Certainly there is a case for saying there have long been and still are temperature scales that are generally defined at certain points corresponding with certain events like phase changes, and defined between those points by continuous relationships with other measureables like liquid expansion or Platinum resistivity. And certainly the various editions of ITS try to mimic real thermodynamic temperature, using a temperature scale that is practically accessable to metrologists.
I have to change my statement and say that, ideally, thermodynamic temperature is defined in terms of kelvins without any scale, but that kelvins are also used in temperature scales such as the ITS, and there is plenty of precedent for “kelvin temperature scale” as a technical term. For all I know, I am agreeing with you - am I?
0 °C is indeed equal to 273.15 K. But as you stated, the FP of water is no longer defined to be 0 °C. The latest measurements suggest the FP of water is around 0.000089 °C.
BTW: I’m certainly not an expert on the subject of temperature, but I did run a temperature metrology lab for many years, and I still have access to it. I have attended the Precision Thermometry Course at NIST, and was on a first-name basis with Greg Strouse when he ran the SPRT lab. (He calibrated my SPRTs.) I bring this up, not to brag, but to let you know that my comments on this subject do have a certain amount validity.
Correct. The problem with the ice point is that it is extremely difficult to realize with a high degree of reproducibility. Researchers have certainly tried it (I have some papers on it), and it took them nearly a week to make a near-perfect ice-point bath. By contrast, I can form a mantle in one of my triple points in about 30 minutes, and it’s ready to be used in 24 hours.
Correct. There are only two defined temperatures: absolute zero and the TP of water. These two points have the unit kelvin (0 K and 273.16 K, respectively), and they define the entire thermodynamic scale and ITS-90. The temperatures of each of the other fixed points are simply known to a high degree of accuracy. We will never know exactly what they are, but every decade we get better and better at zeroing-in on what their true temperatures are. As an example, right now we say the FP temperature of Sn is 505.078 K. The next ITS may say it’s 505.076 K. Or perhaps 505.079 K. Whatever they come up with, it will (hopefully) be closer to the true FP temperature of Sn, whatever it may be.
I don’t know - I’m somewhat confused, to be honest. Perhaps we’re just talking about semantics here. All I know is that the powers-to-be have decreed absolute zero to be 0 K and the TP of VSMOW water to be 273.16 K. And then they draw a straight line, so to speak.
One way in which Kelvins differ from temperature scales is that matter with a temperature of 2 K has twice as much energy as matter with a temperature of 1 K. Celsius and Fahrenheit don’t have any relationship like this because they are scales.