Are there limits on temperature?

I am trying to answer this question for someone, and I thought it was sort of interesting.

If we have absolute zero where all motion stops, is there a maximum limit on temperature where atoms begin to come apart?

Hydrogen atoms begin tearing apart at around 100,000,000 derees F. enabling Hydrogen nuclei to fuse into Helium nuclei, but it requires temperatures almost twice this to fuse He nuclei into carbon and other heavier nuclei.

In turn, the C nuclei would require temperatures almost double that of He nuclei fusion to form even heavier elements.

This process continues until almost all the lighter elements nuclei has fused into Iron. The Fe atom is highly stable and can withstand extreme temperatures and pressures.

Once it gets to it's breaking point, the electrons are stripped from the Fe's electron orbits thus leaving only the nucleus of the iron atom under extreme pressures and temperatures.

With this, all the nucleus' of Fe collapse instantaneously upon one another causing a super-violent explosion.

From this, heavier nuclei than Fe are created.

Getting back to your question, absolute zero is as cold as antyhing can theoretically get. I don't know how high a temperature can go, though it seems logical that it would have a limit also.

well i will give my 11th grade physics info. a try on this question

i think that temp. can go up and up and up forever...

it all depends on if we can measure this super high temp. without destroying our instruments...

if we cannot measure (or prove it exists) it is not "real" or it does not exist...

just my 11th grade physics mind working

I think absolute zero is unreachable, as I read that there is some movement even when something is that cold, and then that never would be totally still.
For higher temnperatures is it connecte with energy of a particle, or wave has temperature, too?
As knowing wave is also form of something existing. Microwave has temperature, as it warms the object which it hits.

Wouldn't the limit of the temp. be the amount of energy being expended, and it's ability to continualy expend more energy, thus creating a higher temp. ?

What i think is that since there is an absolute zero, there should also be a limit on how high temperature can get.But, of course there is the case of the amount of energy needed for such a high temperature.THere could be a theory that the big bang was the highest any temperature could ever reach.

I think the highest temperature something can obtain is called the Planck temperature. It is roughly 10e32 degrees Kelvin. The sun is approximately 15 million degrees Kelvin (15x10e6).

The Planck temperature appeared once, very shortly (we're talking pico-micro seconds) after the Big Bang.


NVBadBoy

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Intelearthling
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NVBadBoy

These are all good answers and have given me more info than I knew. So with that I will look into some of the scientific answers I recieved on the world wide google!

Keep up the good work

Originally posted by they see ALL
i think that temp. can go up and up and up forever...
it all depends on if we can measure this super high temp. without destroying our instruments...

Well, James Joule devised an instrument to detect the heat of moonlight.

Joule's Moonlight Detector

You will just have to be ingenious and devise an ultra high temperature thermometer!

As knowing wave is also form of something existing. Microwave has temperature, as it warms the object which it hits.

Well im pretty sure that microwaves don't actually have a heat in and of themselves but are able to heat up objects by transfer of energy as microwaves are pure energy it seems illogical to conclude that energy has its own temperature. no offense or anything.

I also heard somewhere the theory that particals and atoms never come to a complete stop i believe that's along the lines of what might by some be called pseudo science ( forgive me if i mispelled that). It's along the same basis of a universal connection between all mass and energy. Some things relating to it are wilhelm reich's research(on orgonomics), nicola tesla was on to some of the same conclusions later in his research i believe and a few others had the same thoughts.

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Isn't heat the macro vibrations of molecules? Nucleus vector speed?

I assume it doesn't include the stretching, flexing and wobbling of electron orbitals around the nucleus.

So at some point the kinetic speed of the nucleus of the atom is going to be going as fast as the speed of light. If it went faster than that I would imagine it would leave our Universe, provided it didn't disintegrate prior to that.

Since the Electrons are already going at the speed of light, I wonder if high nuclear vector speeds either strip off their electrons or kick the electrons out of the Universe?
.

I don't think there is a limit, either way. I think it is imposiible for things to completely stop moving. And, whatwould be keeping temperature from rising?

Originally posted by DII503
I don't think there is a limit, either way. I think it is imposiible for things to completely stop moving. And, whatwould be keeping temperature from rising?

I am not sure either, that is why I asked the forum for some insight. I was kind of thinking that if something gets enormously hot, atoms and even a nucleus could come apart, and then matter would cease to exist at some point.

Funny thing, i was just reading Michio Kaku's Hyperspace and i came across this article:

If we heat the "gas of nucleons further to 10 trillion Kelvin, these subatomic particles will turn into disassociated quarks. We will now ha
ve a gas of quarks and leptons(the electrons and neutrinos).

If we heat this gas to 1 duadrillion Kelvin, the electromagnetic force and the weak force will become united. The symmetry SU(2) x U(1) will emerge at this temperature. At 10^28 Kelvin, the elecroweak and strong forces become united, and the HUT symmetries(SU(5), O(10), or E(6)) appear.

Finally, at a fabulous 10^32 Kelvin, gravity unites with the GUT force, and all teh symmetries of the 10-dimensional superstring appear. We now have a gas of superstring. At that point, so much energy will have gone into the pressure cooker that the geometry of space-time may very well begin to distort, and the dimentionality of space-time may change. The space around our kitchen may very well become unstable, a rip may form in the fabric of space, and a wormhole may appear.

Basically, according to his theory, the highest temperature u can get to is 10^32 Kelvin, before the dimentionality of space-time will change, causing a wormhole, becuase the energy is too much. Kinda sounds interesting though, to wonder what will happen if it went higher...

Question - I know that there is such a thing as absolute zero where
the particles can't get any colder, but is there such a thing where the
particles can't get any hotter?
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Not really. Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy of the
particles, and the minimum value of kinetic energy is zero. There is no
maximum value, however.


Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
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The other limit would be infinite temperature. This is not as
crazy as it sounds. Temperature is formally a measure of the
probability of a system being in states of different energy, e.g. the
fact that the Earth's atmosphere has a temperature of 300 K (roughly)
tells you how much less likely it is for a nitrogen molecule to be at
10,000 feet altitude (where it has significant gravitational potential
energy) versus zero altitude (where it has none).
Zero temperature means formally that the system can ONLY be in the
lowest possible energy state: in our example, every nitrogen atom must
be on the ground. Infinite temperature means that the system can be
found with equal probability in all possible energy states, including
those that have infinite energy: in our example, nitrogen atoms are
equally likely to be at zero altitude as halfway to the Moon.

Dr. C grayce
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From:

www.newton.dep.anl.gov...