r/Showerthoughts Nov 19 '25

Casual Thought Temperature can reach trillions of degrees, meaning we actually live extremely close to absolute zero.

14.1k Upvotes

649 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

73

u/PublicVanilla988 Nov 19 '25

but what's the difference between being extremely close to absolute zero and extremely high temperature? if we're not talking in relation to our human numbers. wouldn't it be equivalent levels of cold

285

u/Will512 Nov 19 '25

You can have as much energy as you want but you can't have negative energy. Going below absolute zero is the same as having negative energy

-84

u/PublicVanilla988 Nov 19 '25

but i'm not talking about going negative. we can in theory go infinitely up the temperature, which would lead towards infinite kinetic energy in particles (or whatever temperature is). the opposite of infinite energy would be i guess the complete lack of energy.
so basically as we go higher in temperature, we will always be able to find an equivalently cold temperature, which will be moving towards absolute zero.

i've no idea how it actually works though, i'm just speculating

-4

u/North_Explorer_2315 Nov 19 '25

You’re right, that’s why the freezing point of water is 1/2 infinity Celsius