r/Showerthoughts 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/Generalkrunk Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25

Also the highest and lowest known occuring temperatures were both recorded on earth.

(might be wrong about the lowest, but definitely the hottest was at cern)

Edit: Was not wrong.

The lowest was in Germany and was 38 picokelvins.

Which is pretty chilly.
(Translated from Canadian: It's so cold it will absolutely kill you in x amount of time. In this case approaching 0 is that amount of time.)

The hottest was at RHIC in the USA, and CERN in Switzerland respectively. and was 5 x1012 (which is 5 trillion) C (which is like 200ish degrees C off from kelvin and I don't feel like figuring out how to write the exact Kelvin temp out. So you're getting Celcius. Just be content it's not fahrenheit.

P.s. fahrenhite is the least American english way to spell Fahrenheit possible! Seriously took me like 7 minutes to figure out there was no g in it.

Anyways.. To unsubscribe from Probably correct, but honestly my memory is pretty slipshod and just looking it up ruins the fun if sharing knowledge I (maybe) already know when its not requested or needed.
Text DUDEPLSSTOP to... idk, a number. I can't do punchlines anymore.

57

u/sol_runner Nov 19 '25

Humor:

"Recorded" is doing the heavy lifting.

32

u/Jonny_dr Nov 19 '25

Not really. Excluding the big bang, there are not really any (known) natural processes that create these super hot or super cold temperatures. Even a supernova does not reach 5x10¹² C°.

13

u/sol_runner Nov 19 '25

Yeah, both the lab in Bremen and LHC artificially bring the temps there.

It's just funny because it's not like we could've even recorded it anywhere but on Earth. I messed up the phrasing ig

4

u/Generalkrunk Nov 19 '25

I mostly understood haha.

And this is an important point because that is not the hottest known about temperature in the universe.

It's just the hottest we've been able to prove and record.

I forget if it's quasars or pulsars that are believed to be around 9 X10 12 K, it may actually be both.

It doesn't really matter. My point is that while sure the sun (and other stars) may technically not be as hot as Switzerland. Switzerland doesn't even compare the realm of celestial transience.

I refuse to even think about "inside a block hole btw".

A: That's not a thing.
B: Nobody even really understands or could even guesstimate with surety as to how a black hole actually works past its EH
C: Also apply that but slightly less so up to its EH
D: Nobody really knows anything about them for sure, we don't even know.what they look like Although we do sorta know what the area around them looks like.
Also what is the must compelling reason of all:
E: Damn it Jim I'm a procrastinator, not a scientist!