Seeking 'absolute zero', copper cube gets chillingly close

An Italian lab has cooled a cubic metre of copper to within a tiny fraction of "absolute zero", setting a world record, the National Nuclear Physics Institute said Tuesday.
"The cooled copper mass... was the coldest cubic meter in the universe for over 15 days," the INFN said on its website. "It is the first experiment ever to cool a mass and a volume of this size to a temperature this close to absolute zero (0 Kelvin)," it said.
The cubic meter, or 35 cubic feet, of copper weighing 400 kilogrammes (880 pounds) was brought to a temperature of six milliKelvins or minus 273.144 Celsius (minus 459.66 Fahrenheit).
Absolute zero—considered the lowest possible temperature—is -273.15 C or zero on the Kelvin scale, named after 19th-century Irish engineer and physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, credited with establishing the correct value of the temperature.

link

So close to absolute zero, but still so far.
Is it even possible to reach absolute zero here on earth? I mean, it's so mindbogglingly cold.. Better think of this when the winter hits to keep us all warm and cozy inside

So, absolute zero means that the molecules/atoms stop moving, right?

Don't the electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom? Is that what stops moving? And, if so, what happens then? Does the element still exist without motion if motion is part of it's existence?

originally posted by: Aldakoopa
So, absolute zero means that the molecules/atoms stop moving, right?

Don't the electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom? Is that what stops moving? And, if so, what happens then? Does the element still exist without motion if motion is part of it's existence?

At absolute zero, absolutely nothing would move. Electrons and nucleii would be stationary, no photons would be emitted or absorbed.

But that so far is impossible to achieve, because at the lowest level, you have the quantum flux of the space-time continuum creating energy. The entire space has to be completely shielded from all possible sources of energy gain; heat, light, magnetism, sub-atomic radiation.

Its been awhile since I read about the early history of this type of stuff....but my understanding is that absolute zero is impossible.

a reply to: Aldakoopa

Not quite so. Absolute zero is more of a theoretical temperature, intrenationally agreed on. It has more to do with the state of matter, from gas to liquid and from liquid to solid.
This is why it's not that simple.

Absolute zero is the lower limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale, a state at which the enthalpy and entropy of a cooled ideal gas reaches its minimum value, taken as 0. The theoretical temperature is determined by extrapolating the ideal gas law; by international agreement, absolute zero is taken as −273.15° on the Celsius scale (International System of Units),[1][2] which equates to −459.67° on the Fahrenheit scale (United States customary units).[3] The corresponding Kelvin and Rankine temperature scales set their zero points at absolute zero by definition.

wikilink to absolute zero

So absolute zero would be completely unattainable? Then it's just a theory and can never be proven...

Things like that blow my mind. My brain hurts now.

a reply to: Aldakoopa

I'm afraid so

Here is from the wiki:

Absolute zero cannot be achieved, although it is possible to reach temperatures close to it through the use of cryocoolers, dilution refrigerators, and nuclear adiabatic demagnetization. The use of laser cooling has produced temperatures less than a billionth of a kelvin.[18] At very low temperatures in the vicinity of absolute zero, matter exhibits many unusual properties, including superconductivity, superfluidity, and Bose–Einstein condensation. To study such phenomena, scientists have worked to obtain even lower temperatures.

a reply to: Aldakoopa

absolute zero, while given a numerical value, really equates more to a state that the matter is in, not a temperature. Temperature relates to the amount of energy within the item. In this case, absolute zero means that there is no energy present.

a reply to: puolikuu

I have a question in regard to this....

Why does a cubic metre of copper weigh less than a cubic metre of water, which itself weighs 1000 kilograms? Copper has a higher atomic number than oxygen and hydrogen combined, unless I am mistaken.

What is strange is that my ex wife was so efficient at reaching absolute zero is that I thought it was common all this time.

a reply to: puolikuu

Very interesting. A cubic metre of copper weighs about 8,900 kilograms or 19,700 pounds. Maybe they are talking about a hollow vessel made out of copper, but in that case they could as well be talking about a "cubic metre of any heat conducting material". I wonder if there are other inconsistencies as well in this report...

a reply to: LightSpeedDriver

I suppose they forgot to add some zeros to the 400kg copper cube
Copper is about 9 times as heavy as water (8930kg/cu.m)

..unless those extreme temps make it lighter in some neat quantum way With these numbers and maths it's borderline black magic anyway

originally posted by: Doc Lithium
a reply to: puolikuu

Very interesting. A cubic metre of copper weighs about 8,900 kilograms or 19,700 pounds. Maybe they are talking about a hollow vessel made out of copper, but in that case they could as well be talking about a "cubic metre of any heat conducting material". I wonder if there are other inconsistencies as well in this report...

Yeah, I guess you are right! Here's what I found while reading further into this:

An international team of scientists recently set a world record by cooling a copper vessel with a volume of a cubic meter down to a temperature of 6 milliKelvins—or -273.144 degrees Celsius. It was the first experiment to chill an object so large this close to absolute zero. Read more at: phys.org...

a reply to: puolikuu
ETA: Just read the above reply.

a reply to: LightSpeedDriver


Apparently it was a vessel, 1 cubic meter in volume, not solid copper. The mass was 400kg.

Yea.sorry..

just cool stuff

cant wait to see what happens when we reatch this

the furture of tech i is suppercooled

look at cpus u take a modern prosessor down to -50 and its 10x faster overclocked ofcourse

imagin taking down to that temp

im always fasinated with the cold and electronics as all electronics love the cold

originally posted by: markovian
just cool stuff

cant wait to see what happens when we reatch this

the furture of tech i is suppercooled

look at cpus u take a modern prosessor down to -50 and its 10x faster overclocked ofcourse

imagin taking down to that temp

im always fasinated with the cold and electronics as all electronics love the cold

A laptop with a nuclear adiabatic demagnetization fan and Bose–Einstein condensation CPU..that'd be cool

This new tech really is super cool. To the extent our very reality as we know it starts to behave in odd ways. We really have come a long way, and Siberia isn't really that cold anymore..

..and oh, about all electronics loving the cold. Really? I'd have a very hard time convincing my phone that's true. It's veeeeery sluggy when it's -15C outside, even if it's in my pocket...

Light obviously travels at the speed of light and is currently thought to be a constant. Light exists.

Absolute zero. In an infinite universe must also exist somewhere for it to be the observable scientific absolute zero. Great on them that they made a big cold block of copper...but to claim it as "the coldest thing in the universe" when their own math proves an absolute zero is a fact and nothing can be colder bothers me.

Sure our physics and math work but disintegrate when our observations prove things aren't always the same on paper as they are in the Universe.

originally posted by: Aldakoopa
So, absolute zero means that the molecules/atoms stop moving, right?

Don't the electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom?

No. Orbitals are not orbits. They don't go around in loops like planets around the sun.

Is that what stops moving?

No. As you approach absolute zero, you get a lot less electron motion. You reduce the number of phonons to near zero. All the qm mechanical motion that's going on drops into ground state. In a block of conductive metal the electrons aren't attached to individual nuclei in a normal state but I'd suspect they might be near absolute zero. The vast majority of them will be in ground state as well.

However, as you approach absolute zero they don't stop moving or drop into the nuclei. Even at absolute zero, they still remain separate, and that's where you get the term "zero point energy". It's the energy remaining in the system when everything's at ground state.

And, if so, what happens then? Does the element still exist without motion if motion is part of it's existence?

Yes.

So what would happen if you licked it?