Temperature Ranges
Lets get a feeling for the temperature magnitudes of different
systems. We will use the Kelvin scale for it. Soon, we will define the
unit Kelvin, but let's just use it for now.
- The
World record for the lowest temperature is presently 1 nK =
10-9 K, which was achieved with rubidium atoms that
underwent Bose-Einstein condensation in an optical trap.
- Capturing atoms and cooling them with laser beams leads to the
phenomenon called "Optical Molasses" and achieves a temperature of
2 $\cdot$ 10-4 K, still a factor of 10000 colder than even
empty space in the Cosmos.
- The temperature of the cosmic background radiation left over
from the "Big Bang" is 2.73 K. If somebody were to ask you what
the temperature of the empty space in Cosmos is, this would be
your answer.
- Hydrogen is a solid below 14 K.
- High-temperature superconductors become normal conductors at
temperatures above approximately 100 K. The exact value depends on
the specific material used, but is still far below room
temperature (= 300 K).
- Ice melts at 273 K, and water boils at 373 K.
- Your body temperature is 310 K.
- Between the coldest winter night in Antarctica and the hottest
day in Death Valley, CA, is only a temperature difference of less
than 200 K. We have indicated the range of all possible
atmospheric temperatures on the surface of the Earth in the
diagram on the right in purple. Since we are using a logarithmic
scale of incredibly large range, the purple area only appears as a
thin line.
- Paper burst into flames once the temperature exceeds 500
K.
- The flame of a bunsen burner is 1900 K hot, that of an arc
welder 3500 K.
- Gold evaporates at 2933 K.
- The surface temperature of the Sun is around 6000 K, and the
interior temperature reaches up to 2000-times higher values, about
15 MK = 1.5$\cdot$ 107 K
- In atomic and nuclear physics, we often specify the
temperature in electron Volts, eV. 1
eV is equivalent to a temperature of 11600 K.
- You need a temperature of 4$\cdot$ 107 K to ignite a
hydrogen bomb. This is done by a nuclear fission bomb. Once the
hydrogen bomb explodes, it reaches a 10 times higher temperature
than that.
- Temperatures around 10 MeV, 1010 K, make atomic
nuclei boil. On Earth, we build very expensive accelerators to
reach this temperature. In the cosmos, this temperature can only
be generated from the explosion of a supernova.
- Ultra-relaticvistic heavy ion reactions, like the ones
produced at CERN, Switzerland, or at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider in Brookhaven, NY, reach temperatures around 200 MeV,
about 2$\cdot$ 1012 K. This is sufficient to temporarily
liberate individual quarks and gluons from the protons and
neutrons that usually trap them. We can thus recreate the
conditions that the Universe was in about 15 billion years ago,
only fractions of a second after the "Big Bang".
© W. Bauer, 1999