Saturday 28 July 2007

Absolute zero

Let's say that, just as greater or lesser temperature is the state in which the particles of matter are in greater or lesser motion, so absolute zero is that state when the particles are quite motionless. There can't be less motion than no motion, and so there couldn't be a lower temperature than absolute zero. But what if those motionless particles were to shrink, each on its centre, each away from the other? Wouldn't the effect be a reduction in the temperature to a state below absolute zero? What, I wonder, would that look like?

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