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General Science / Re: How Do We Know The Temp Of Absolute Zero If We Can never Reach It ?
« on: Yesterday at 10:20:16 »
The question is unanswerable because it is backwards!
We define absolute zero as the temperature of a heat sink at which a Carnot engine would reach 100% efficiency.
What makes it intriguing is that this condition would be independent of the temperature of the heat source.
What makes it unreachable is the inverse rider that it would require the expenditure of an infinite amount of energy to remove the last infinitesimal amount of heat from an object.
We define absolute zero as the temperature of a heat sink at which a Carnot engine would reach 100% efficiency.
What makes it intriguing is that this condition would be independent of the temperature of the heat source.
What makes it unreachable is the inverse rider that it would require the expenditure of an infinite amount of energy to remove the last infinitesimal amount of heat from an object.
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