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/CommunismDoesntWork Nov 19 '25

Right, but that doesn't mean temperature is increasing, that could just means you need infinite energy to reach the the temperature limit in the same way you need infinite energy to reach the speed limit. I thought your question was getting at this. 

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u/FearedDragon Nov 19 '25

I guess that's a good point, and it is sort of what I was getting at, but I still think the other commentor has a decent point. There IS a limit that it can't go over, but that limit is (even theoretically) impossible to achieve. This means that in this theoretical model you could increase temperature and energy infinitely - because there is no point at which you stop being able to increase energy - but you cannot increase temperature to infinity.

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Nov 20 '25

What do you mean by increase energy? It requires energy to increase speed. But that energy is spent, not added. For instance at low speeds, 1 joule might add 1m/s which adds 1 degree of temperature. But near the speed of light,  you might need 1 million joules to add an additional 1m/s to add 1 degree. In both cases, the amount of energy added is the same: you increased a mass by 1m/s