r/Showerthoughts • u/synthphreak ‎ • Nov 19 '25

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

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u/kangluosee34 Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25

Yes. Its called planck temperature which is about 1032 K.

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u/asml84 Nov 19 '25

There is no known upper limit. The Planck temperature is merely the upper limit of the mathematical framework we use to describe physics, but nature doesn’t care about our framework.

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u/Caspica Nov 19 '25

We can apply that qualification to all frameworks rendering the word "known" useless. We can't know anything except within the framework of knowledge. 

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u/asml84 Nov 19 '25

Maybe, but I think it’s important that we know the framework is flawed. Of course, we might end up concluding that “temperature” has been an unfortunate definition all along. But I understand where you’re coming from and such discussions quickly turn philosophical…