
The Coldest Cold (1929) - georgecmu
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,751945,00.html
======
bpeters
Wait, so at the end of that article it basically said that 200 cubic
centimeters of helium ice could be used as an explosive? Dry ice bomb for
adults?

"Conversely, when all heat has been driven from a substance, as Professor
Keesom almost did last week, it may be that "matter" will explode into those
universal waves which man at present can call only "nothingness." What the
violence of such an explosion might be, no man can guess but experimenter
Keesom may yet find out."

~~~
geuis
Not an explosion. I know nothing of the physics at the quantum level beyond
layman stuff. However, "explode" is probably the wrong word.

If you consider during the first nano seconds of the Big Bang when
temperatures were at their highest in history (and energy at its most dense),
all of the base forces were combined.

As the energy of the early universe expanded and became less dense, the atomic
forces (strong, weak, etc) froze and separated out of the dense energy and the
unifying parent force. As the atomic forces became separated, quanta of energy
started forming into sub-sub-atomic particles which further combined into sub-
atomic particles like protons, neutrons, and electrons. These then combined to
form mainly hydrogen with trace amounts of helium and lithium.

Its not till later after the first few generations of mega-stars that other
elements formed (oxygen, carbon, iron, etc).

So based on all of this, from everything I know particle physics seems to be
the result of energy moving into lower states over the time scale of the
universe. Because of this, I don't think that if you cool an atom to absolute
zero (which is supposed to be impossible but I don't know why), that the atom
will disperse. The removal of energy doesn't seem to make the fundamental
forces disappear, so all you get is a very cold atom of helium that just
doesn't move at all.

~~~
cynest
Temperature is a property of a system, not a single particle. Temperatures of
absolute zero are considered impossible to produce because maintaining
absolute zero requires a system with zero energy entering.

~~~
geuis
Yup, thanks for the correction.

