ABSOLUTE ZERO

Questions:
1. Visit the following URL: What is absolute zero?
A. According to this website, what is the definition of "absolute
zero"?
The temperature in an object or a material that is cooled, a
point is eventually reached at which all oscillations are the
slowest they can possibly be is absolute zero.
B. Why is the Kelvin scale especially helpful when studying absolute
zero?
Kelvin scale is helpful when studying absolute zero because
this scale uses the same temperature steps as the Celsius
scale, but is shifted downward. On this scale, water freezes
at 273 K and boils at 373 K. Only on the Kelvin temperature
scale does absolute zero actually fall at 0 K.
C. What is the value of absolute zero on the Kelvin scale? The
Celsius scale and the Fahrenheit scale?
The value of absolute zero on the Kelvin scale falls at 0 K,
on Fahrenheit scale is at -459 Fahrenheit, on the Celsius
scale, absolute zero corresponds to a temperature of -273
Celsius.
2. Visit the following URL: Physlink.com Absolute Zero or Ask a Scientist:
Absolute Zero
A. According to this website, what type of experiments led to the
idea of absolute zero?
The first, and simplest, demonstration of the existence of an
'absolute zero' temperature was found in the behavior of gas
pressure vs. temperature. If the pressure of an enclosed gas on a
vertical axis is plotted against its temperature on the horizontal
scale, we get a straight line slanting upward to the right. That
means that increasing the temperature results in increased
pressure.

If we extrapolate the line backward to the left (toward lower

temperatures) it crosses the horizontal axis at about -273
degrees centigrade, regardless of the gas being measured. That
is recognized as the coldest possible temperature, when all
motion stops.
B. Describe scientists' attempts to reach absolute zero.
Scientist attempted to reach absolute zero by using many
theories and principles. They used modern quantum statistical
mechanics that needed to examine what happens to molecules
at low temperature 0K that will be in its lowest-energy quantum
state.
Gases have been super cooled by supersonic expansions and
brought down to several mill kelvins without condensing; this is a
thermodynamically metastable situation, but it can persist for a
short time. Many other methods like compression, evaporation,
(gases liquefy at) high pressures, adiabatic magnetic cooling, via
dilution refrigerator, laser cooling etc., are used.
Recent investigation on the Bose-Einstein Condensation
experiments reported that when atoms were cooled they were in
their lowest energy state, their wave functions "merged", or lost
their individual identities, they did not "collapse", but they
certainly changed character.
In accordance with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, lowestenergy quantum state of a molecule will correspond to a
distribution of position and momentum values in general and will
not be perfectly still.
The old, pre-quantum "kinetic theory" of gases predicts that an
ideal gas will stop moving at T=0, but a quantum-mechanical
effect known as "zero-point motion" prevents this from ever
happening to a real gas. Furthermore, a real gas usually will
condense long before one gets to 0K unless it is super cooled by
some very tricky experimental technique and even in that
crystalline form, in its ground state the atoms of the crystal will
still be moving which is quantum-mechanical effect.
3. Visit the following URL: New State of Matter Seen Near Absolute Zero .
What is a Bose-Einstein condensate?
Bose-Einstein achieved a temperature far lower than any
previously produced and created an entirely new state of matter

predicted 70 years ago by Albert Einstein and Indian physicist

Satyendra Nath Bose.
4. According to the information you have obtained, you know that
absolute zero is about -273 degrees Celsius. You will now use your
graph to predict this value based on the laboratory data presented in
this activity.
A. Think back to the Galileo Gardens activity "Graphing Tips." You
will be using the same prediction techniques to find the value of
absolute zero. Go back to your graph from step 5 above. Be sure
that the graph window is active. From the menu bar at the top of
the screen, select "Analyze." Choose "Automatic Curve Fit."
Select the proper function based on the arrangement of the data
points.
B. Now select "Interpolate" from the Analysis menu. You can view
this in the graphic at right. Move your cursor along the line of the
graph until the y axis value is zero (0). The corresponding x value
is the predicted value of absolute zero. What is the predicted
value of absolute zero shown on your graph?
X value predicted is -273 c that is the absolute value on my
graph.

5. Now that you have studied the concept of absolute zero, do you think this
temperature will ever be reached? Explain your answer.
No. The coldest temperatures ever to be reached have been in making Bose-Einstein
condensates (tiny clumps of super-cold atoms) which requires cooling to something like 200
Nano-kelvins -- mere billionths of degrees above absolute zero.
But to go all the way to zero implies complete lack of particle energy. According to the principles
of quantum mechanics, there must always be some activity representing energy and therefore a
temperature above absolute zero. For example, electron-positron pairs may be created out of
vacuum.
"Physicists acknowledge they can never reach the coldest conceivable temperature, known as
absolute zero and long ago calculated to be minus 459.67F. To physicists, temperature is a
measure of how fast atoms are moving, a reflection of their energyand absolute zero is the
point at which there is absolutely no heat energy remaining to be extracted from a substance."
According to scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. MIT "currently
holds the recordat least according to Guinness World Records 2008for lowest temperature:
810 trillionths of a degree F above absolute zero. Ketterle and his colleagues accomplished that
feat in 2003 while working with a cloudabout a thousandth of an inch acrossof sodium
molecules trapped in place by magnets."