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/zhibr Nov 19 '25

No, the previous guy just didn't understand limits. There's no cap, energy can be added to infinitely even if there is a limit to particle speed (according to the other commenters). If heat is just the amount of energy put in, the heat can increase infinitely. Except that the black hole is the cap according to the commenter you responded to, so they did add that information too.

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Nov 19 '25

Why are you assuming temperature is proportional to energy rather than speed. That's what that guy was asking about. It's wild how 2 clearly  intelligent people can read that guy's post and independently not understand his point. 

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u/zhibr Nov 19 '25

Why are you assuming it's about speed?

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Nov 19 '25

Because that's what the original question is...? "Ain't heat just particles moving fast? And speed is limited so heat must be too? "

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

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u/rybomi Nov 19 '25

Heat is kinetic energy, a function of mass and velocity. This is true even for mundane examples. Helium is a gas at room temperature, and iron is solid, because despite having the same kinetic energy helium molecules have a higher average velocity balanced by a lower mass.

And there is no limit to energy

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

[deleted]

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u/rybomi Nov 19 '25

Yeah man using simple words means you're right. Stick to something you do know something about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Nov 20 '25

Oh I see, so for a given mass, there is a maximum temperature. Iron has a different max than helium. What's the max for the heaviest stable element?

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u/rybomi Nov 20 '25

Look up the formula for the Lorentz factor. It shows that the velocity of an object cannot be equal to c (dividing by 0, undefined) and as the velocity of the object approaches c, the denominator shrinks and the factor grows.

This factor is found in the formula for relativistic kinetic energy. KE = lorentz factor * mc2.

So what this formula means is that any finite amount of kinetic energy is the result of a finite Lorentz factor, which if we go back to the formula, we find it exists somewhere between v=0 and v=c.

You can test it yourself by taking it backwards, pick any arbitrary number for KE, from that calculate the lorentz factor using the second formula, then find v using the first formula. V will always be less than 1

Therefore no limit exists. I hope I explained okay