| Themes > Science > Physics > Cryogenics > Temperature > Is a negative Kelvin temperature possible? > Introduction |
Thermodynamics is older than the atomistic view of matter, hence thermodynamic quantities such as temperature are not defined atomistically. The definition of temperature allows negative absolute temperatures. But do such temperature have any empirical meaning? While this might be questionable, it is certainly interesting to discuss it because it helps understand the concept of temperature. As follows, a simplified statistical concept of temperature is discussed and used to explain the state of matter in lasers as well as the technique to attain very low temperature (adiabatic demagnetization) |
|
|