Never ending heat
Discussion
So we've had never ending light in an inside out bauble but what's the answer to this one.
There's a heater in a cold room that's perfectly insulated i.e. no heat loss. The heaters' element is set to 20 degrees C and the thermostat has thrown a wabbly and don't work no more. What happens to the temperature in the room, does it get to 20, stay at 20 or keep on rising?
There's a heater in a cold room that's perfectly insulated i.e. no heat loss. The heaters' element is set to 20 degrees C and the thermostat has thrown a wabbly and don't work no more. What happens to the temperature in the room, does it get to 20, stay at 20 or keep on rising?
If there is NO heatloss from the enclosed space, the space would continue to heat up until it got so hot, the heater failed. It would then stay at that temperature. If the energy can't be conducted, convected or radiated away it will increase the temperature of the "room" indefinitely.
Muncher said:
If there is NO heatloss from the enclosed space, the space would continue to heat up until it got so hot, the heater failed. It would then stay at that temperature. If the energy can't be conducted, convected or radiated away it will increase the temperature of the "room" indefinitely.
It's an imaginery heater that would never fail due to the superior german parts used in its construction. Not that that changes your answer I guess as you're saying it would increase in temp indefinitely.
Another question then, is there an absolute max temperature like there is a minimum possible temp ie. -273?
fid said:
If the element's at a constant 20 celcius, regardless of how well the room's insulated, it ain't gonna go above 20 celcius.
Bingo. However, the temperature the element will run at depends (assuming constant resistance) on both the current flow and the ambient temperature. So, if it is in fact the current flow that is constant the room will continue to heat until the element burns out or time ends.
For the temperature of the element to remain at 20° then, current flow at T=20° would equal zero and the system would reach equilibrium.
As for maximum temperature I guess it is whatever you would get if all of the energy in the universe was concentrated as heat in the smallest quantum of matter in the universe (whatever that is, a quark?).
>> Edited by dieseljohn on Saturday 3rd December 20:33
There is no agreed-upon value, among physicists, for a maximum possible temperature. Under our current best-guess of a complete theory of physics, the maximum possible temperature is the Planck temperature, or 1.41679 × 10^32 Kelvins. This translates to about a quarter of a hundred nonillion degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 x 10^32). However, it is common knowledge that our current theories of physics are incomplete, thus leaving open the possibility of still higher temperatures.
So 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 degrees fahrenheit!
So 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 degrees fahrenheit!
Everyone is talking about the temperature of the room, but what about the pressure?
As the temperature rises, so does the pressure. If the room is evacuated, then the atoms of any minute traces of gas that exist will eventaully become plasma, then presumably the protons, neutrons and electrons will themselves separate.
It's important to remember that thermal heat cannot exist in a vacuum. Infrared EM energy can pass through space, but it only exhibits it's self as "heat" when it interacts with matter.
Edited to add;
This question is, in fact, exactly the same as the previous one about light.
>> Edited by dilbert on Saturday 3rd December 21:08
>> Edited by dilbert on Saturday 3rd December 21:17
As the temperature rises, so does the pressure. If the room is evacuated, then the atoms of any minute traces of gas that exist will eventaully become plasma, then presumably the protons, neutrons and electrons will themselves separate.
It's important to remember that thermal heat cannot exist in a vacuum. Infrared EM energy can pass through space, but it only exhibits it's self as "heat" when it interacts with matter.
Edited to add;
This question is, in fact, exactly the same as the previous one about light.
>> Edited by dilbert on Saturday 3rd December 21:08
>> Edited by dilbert on Saturday 3rd December 21:17
JoolzB said:
Another question then, is there an absolute max temperature like there is a minimum possible temp ie. -273?
Heat is expressed as molecular/atomic movement. The hotter it is, the faster they go. Absolute zero is such because that's when they stop, and you can't get slower than stop.
I remember my chemistry master saying that if all the molecules in a pint of beer happened to move the same way at once, the beer would jump out of the glass...
As for absolute maximum, well, if molecules, atoms etc vibrate faster and faster as temperature increase - what happens when that movement exceeds the speed of light? Will the matter disappear into a parallel universe?
simpo two said:
Another question then, is there an absolute max temperature like there is a minimum possible temp ie. -273?
Heat is expressed as molecular/atomic movement. The hotter it is, the faster they go. Absolute zero is such because that's when they stop, and you can't get slower than stop.
I remember my chemistry master saying that if all the molecules in a pint of beer happened to move the same way at once, the beer would jump out of the glass...
As for absolute maximum, well, if molecules, atoms etc vibrate faster and faster as temperature increase - what happens when that movement exceeds the speed of light? Will the matter disappear into a parallel universe?
Surely at the moment the speed of light is as fast as anything can possibly travel?
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