Re: temperature of space

Posted by DickT on February 16, 2004 at 08:39:57:

In Reply to: Re: temperature of space posted by marcus4767 on February 15, 2004 at 20:16:26:

No all the extra dimensions of string physics are spacelike. The reason for absolute zero being where it is is that energy (in existing physics) is a positive number. It can't be less than zero. Since it can't go negative, there is a sharp cutoff at low values. But there is no cutoff at large values, unless the universe is finite, which nobody knows.

So then the range of values of energy is some half line, starting at zero and going off towards infinity. And then the question is, why are we so close to the zero instead of being over at a hundred billion Joules or whatever.

And the answer is that we are made of the lowest energy particles around, electrons, protons and neutrons, and the reason for that is that electrons and protons have nothing lighter they can decay to, and neutrons decay into electrons and protons (and antineutrinos). So "nuclear" matter is stable. And low energy.

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