Temperatures in intergalactic space

Aug 24, 2020
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Farenheight and Celcious are measures of air temperatures, right? I also read that the température of intergalactic space is only a few degrees above absolute zero. But here is my problem. If there is no air in intergalactic space, how can it be measured in Farenheight or Celcious. How can there be any temperature at all? Is there some theoretical concept of space without temperature? I wonder what that would "feel" like?
 
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It is generally stated that the most ideal temperature for people to live in is 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now if there is scientifically, an absolute perfect temperature it is probably within a fraction of 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

In other words, you have to put a decimal point after the number 72, which is followed by who knows how many numbers.

Hopefully, there is someone on this forum who can actually calculate the absolute perfect temperature which would presumably feel like a complete absence of hot or cold, or feel like there is no temperature at all.

Now this calculation could range from above 71 to below 73 degrees Fahrenheit.
 
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Human comfort is outlined in American Society of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refigeration Engineer's (ASHRAE) publication #55, also ISO 7730.
Perceived comfort is a function of actvity level, clothing, temperature, relative humidity and air flow rate. Often, 72°F is cited as an ideal temperature but that is an average. Here is the ASHRAE Human Comfort Chart. LINK
 
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Human comfort is outlined in American Society of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refigeration Engineer's (ASHRAE) publication #55, also ISO 7730.
Perceived comfort is a function of actvity level, clothing, temperature, relative humidity and air flow rate. Often, 72°F is cited as an ideal temperature but that is an average. Here is the ASHRAE Human Comfort Chart. LINK
You're right, the relative humidity is a factor, but I am talking about 72 degrees Farenheit with a relative humidity of zero.

When it comes to determining the perfect comfort level for people in terms of temperature, I would trust a physicist before anyone who manufactures heating units and air conditioners.

I figured since temperature, or thermal dynamics, is in the wheelhouse of physics, I thought that there could be some way for a physicist to calculate the perfect temperature.

I suppose the study of heat in the observable universe is what astrophysicists specialize in, but the study of heat on earth falls more to meteorologists.
 
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Ideal temperature for humans is just that, "ideal": for humans, discovered or created (via invention) from energies to convert environments to ideal conditions for a species. Boy and man, I've liked E. E. "Doc" Smith's renditions of varieties of species whose ideal temperature conditions and comfort zones varied from near absolute zero to solar hot. For humans, as for any species, there are a variety of conditions to be accounted for, for a "comfort zone," and even that can vary somewhat from human to human to human.

In the future, if things work out right, even gravity -- such as what might be called "heavy gravity" -- is going to come into play for the right comfort zone, as well as different evolutions to hotter or colder temperatures for comfort zones.
 
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Aug 24, 2020
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I guess what I am trying to ask is what is the absolute temperature that falls right in the middle between hot and cold?

I am leaving out the variable of human comfort here.

Can this be calculated to the one billionth of a degree for example?
 
I guess what I am trying to ask is what is the absolute temperature that falls right in the middle between hot and cold?

I am leaving out the variable of human comfort here.

Can this be calculated to the one billionth of a degree for example?
My response to your question has to be "not a chance!" It cannot be a temperature, it has to be a range of temperature, even in barring everything else.
 
If you want the temperature where humans feel neither hot nor cold, look at the ASHRAE data.

If you want some "physics based" median temperature, you must define the two extremes.

"Cold" is what? 32°F freezing point of water, absolute zero at -454°F?
"Hot" is what? Highest temperature on Earth, 134°F? The highest possible temperature, Planck Temperature,1.41x10^32 Kelvins?
You need to pick some temperatures.
 
Going back to the original question How can there be temperature without air, that would be correct. Temperature is the average energy or vibrations of the atoms, if there are no atoms, there is no temperature. But, even in space there are usually one or two atoms in a typical cubic meter. But, I suppose what they’re referring to is placing an object at a location and given sufficient time to acclimate to that location, what would be the temperature of that object. Near a heat source such as a star or even a planet, it might be hot; nowhere near any warm object, mighty cold.
 
Any object in intergalactic space, not producing any of its own heat, and in thermal equilibrium, will assume the temperature of what it sees. That is CMBR at 3K. Plus maybe a little heat from nearby galaxies, I don't know.

The Boomerang nebula is at 1K. It was gas that cooled to 3K while under some pressure, then expanded and cooled.
 
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Not only does space have a temperature, but the mass and matter flying thru it have temperatures too. Temperature is another measure of energy. There are many many forms and therefore many many terms for energy.

We live and exist within a sea of mass and matter. The matter oscillates. This causes the near fields to flicker. These fields also wobble. When the oscillating fields interact, they cause more wobble. More wobble.....more temp. It causes the jiggling matter to jiggle more. In our sea of mass.....temp is all the field and matter wobble around us. Our skin senses the oscillation, jiggle, flicker and wobble of matter around us as temp. Normal use and definition.

But it's different in space. In space and elsewhere if desired, the temp of a particle can be related to it's kinetic energy or velocity. So, a proton from our sun(solar wind) would be cool, compared to a proton of a comic ray, which would be very hot, compared to the wind proton, because ii is moving much faster.

And in our sea of mass, all the field flicker is from near and connected fields. If I heat one end of a wire, it takes time, for the increased wobble to reach the other end. It's a connected transport of the heat and temp. But in space there is no connected fields....for no matter.

But anywhere within or around this cosmos is full.....(well not full, full meaning everywhere)but has a weak blanket of propagated(emitted) fields all thru it from every direction. This is called static. Modern science calls this quantum foam. And particles pop in and out of existence from it.(momentary superposition) These emitted fields, cris-crossing from all directions, superposition for short durations at various locations in space. Giving a small field measurement.......and that can be equated as temp.

If we could measure space at several diameters of the cosmos away, it would measure at absolute zero and there would be no static. Pure un-polluted emptiness. To infinity.
 
Except as fundamental binary base2 (such as 0 (null unity) | 1 (unity) . . . and parity), '0' is a cancelation to.... from (+/-) as in W(+), W(-), Z(0). That includes infinity (infinities) . . . infinite zero. There is no single direction to it ([Past (into future) | Future (into past) | t=0). T=0 (bang!) where and when hottest hell (+) absolutely freezes (-) over . . . and vice-versa (when the head of the snake gobbles itself to the max from the tail forward)! so to speak. There is just one step beyond the absolutes and that is union (0) and bang (in bang)! The infinite of heat, and the infinitesimal of heat, will always cancel out (infinity either way and both ways), relatively speaking, to '0' with a relative local finite leaving . . . including the nonlocal infinities (always being in -- remaining in -- the Horizon and the infinities of horizons in and beyond the Horizon (sic) "at a distance" omni-directionally and omni-dimensionally).

The infinities do NOT magically disappear in cancellation to local finites and neither does the infinite zeroing (infinite zero) . . . the net zeroing (the net zero).
 
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142 nonillion Kelvin (10-32 K)

Let this sink in for a moment.

Comprehending absolute zero (-460 F) is not that difficult.

But according to a theory in particle physics, which I presume is related to quantum physics, says that the only time that the maximum possible temperature of 142 nonillion Kelvin was achieved in nature was during the big bang singularity.

That's pretty hot for such an infinitesimally
small area, which was only achieved for a ridiculously short period of time.

Apparently, through physics, there is no such thing as any fraction of a degree that is the absolute threshold between hot and cold.

What I cannot wrap my head around is how the application of physics was able to arrive at not only a specific maximum temperature, but how ridiculously high it is.

So in layman's terms, wtf is going on here?

There is alot of talk about what came before the big bang, in terms of an imputus, or driving force behind the big bang.

I just want to know where these astronomical temperatures came from.
 
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Two points:

The maximum temperature has to do with following our physics farther and farther back in time until we cannot go any farther. As we go back in time it keeps getting hotter. Each tiny particle starts moving faster and faster as it vibrates. At some point, 1.41e32 K, the vibration speed has to be faster than the speed of light, and we can't have that. So we are at a loss.

Hot and cold are human sensations. Science does not use them formally except that anything at 0 K can be considered cold. Anything above that is hot (to some tiny degree at least). Nothing is at absolute zero so we can say that everything in the universe is hot.
 
I disagree Bill ;):) ! Absolute zero sort of implies point of total energy freeze point, the instant of total energy release, or the absolute instant Hell always freezes over, always cracks up, and always goes all to hell. That 1,41e32 K, or "142 nonillion Kelvin (10-32 K)", whatever, and absolute zero have no differences whatsoever between them. There will be no supernova dynamite or powder keg moment (to coin a phrase) like it matching that eternal dipole moment when "No where's -Land" / "Nothingness-ville" blows -- goes total energy release in Big Bang and/or WIMPer!

Geez, Bill! Didn't you just feel it, and feel it, and feel it some more, those cosmic waves always waving from out of nowhere (no-place (Gk. u-topos))?! ;):)
 
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Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
Heat is a function of the energy exhibited by the movement of elemental particles.

Temperature has to do with the relative energy of these particles. Greater energy/movement implies higher levels - temperature - sharing such energy/movement implies reaching an average energy/movement and thus an averaged out level (temperature).

It is all about attributing meanings to words - definitions - and thus semantics.

It is by accepting common 'meanings' that we can communicate.

BUT the map is not the territory.
The words ARE NOT the reality. They just suggest comparison. Conditions do not promote heat flow from lower to higher temperature, because slow movement does not cause more rapid movement. Slow movement (cold) does not initiate more rapid movement (heat).

It is called thermodynamics which just means study of the relative movement of particles.

Cat :)
 
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The equal but opposed to the above is called life! and the life force of the universe! But I'm just about the only one here (not the only one! though), and in this Dark Utopia Age, who thinks that any kind of force of life and frontier exists to the universe. You read my picturing, my modeling, it has to do with dimensions of life force and an immortally living universe. A life and death force in equal parts (which when you really think about it is all really just life force continuum), not death force and death worship. An inexorability of structural, infrastructural, complexity building is life, not death. An equal inexorability of entropy, the collapse of complexity and turn to... return to... the Wild, is life, not death. The zone of equilibrium is the Hawking "Life Zone" of the universe. And as Hawking said, it is a migratory constant state.

The high energy state is the 'Wild' frontier state of the universe. The lower energy states are built into complexity building. The collapse is to the higher energy state from the lower.
 
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Catastrophe

"Science begets knowledge, opinion ignorance.
Local concentrations in gas clouds (statistically) collapse to form stars, many double, and the residues form planets, asteroids, and space dust, moving down the nucleosynthesis ladder.
There are only billions of planets in billions of galaxies.

Of course, it is ridiculous to suggest that intelligent life could develop anywhere but here - and we have literary proof of that. But CARE - that is forbidden territory.

Cat :)