Absolute zero

[Crescent Pulsar R]

I was tossing around an idea of what kind of limits that someone who can manipulate cold/ice could or should have, and wondered how viable it would be for them to cause a state of absolute zero. So, I'm hoping to understand absolute zero better, since my understanding of thermodynamics only goes so far (not much), and my understanding of quantum mechanics is next to non-existent.

To give you an idea of my lack of understanding, and ultimately what I want to figure out, I was drawing a connection between temperature and kinetic energy. Basically, if it were possible to cease something's movement completely, would that be considered absolute zero?

[Dartz]

In a way, yes.

Absolute Zero breaks so many laws of physics it's not funny.

In theory, at absolute zero, all atomic motion stops. It's the motion of the atoms in your body and their excitement that we perceive as 'heat'. The more excited and fast moving the atoms are, the hotter they are. Something at absolute zero, all the atoms in it would stop moving.

EDIT: My bad... it's still posessess it's zero point (ground state) energy. Thermal energy vanishes. But it could still be dropping from a very big height, or whatever. Liquid helium will still be a liquid at absolute zero because of a bunch of little fluctuations going on.

[Wyrd]

To reach absolute zero, you have to stop all molecular movement within an object. This is a theoretical state, as science has never been able to produce such a state. If the freezing were non-instantaneous(over a few seconds of time) or focused on only a part of an object, it would tear apart practically anything hard that was room temperature as the altered amount of motion would have severe effects on the chemical and other bonds between the atoms and molecules of the object. Metal has a tendency to crystalize and become very brittle at low temperatures. Used in an Earth like atmosphere, you would have rapid condensation of ice and vapour composed only partially of water, as the nitrogen froze solid, followed by oxygen as it hit even lower temperatures.

On the constructive side, flash freezing a living being and flash thawing it in a near instantaneous process preserves the body by not giving the molecules time to rearrange as the shifting forces of lower temperatures push them in different directions, preventing most of the damage that occurs to living beings and possibly making for a way to stop all aging and passage of time as far as the subject is concerned, allowing for long-term travel, preservation until a cure for a disease can be found, etc.

One story I read had an interesting concept. In it, scientists had discovered a process colloquially called 'stoning.' It applied a field to an object that stopped all molecular motion in the object until a second field was used to reverse the process. Because it was not absorbing heat or radiating it at all, it became incredible for its insulating properties, but the real advantage was that the molecules would not shift in relation to each other. This meant that a sheet of paper that had been stoned was harder than a diamond, without the downside of fracture points/stress lines, causing paper to suddenly become the most popular building material in the world.

[Knight of L-sama]

Its probably worth mentioning that just before you hit absolute zero materials start exhibiting rather unusual behaviour. The low Kelvins is the range of the superconductor and strange substances such as para-magnetic O4 and by the time you drop to a couple of Kelvin you start getting stuff like superfluid He4 (superfluid He3 is harder because it requires only a few nano-Kelvin). Basically things are going to start behaving strangely just before you hit absolute zero as well. Basically its an area where quantum mechanical effects begin to dominate over classical mechanics, even for macroscale events.

[Wyrd]

Something I tried to post last night, but was foiled by the site failure, is that something else you would need to consider is the amount of noise it would generate.

Thunder is often described as krak-a-thoom. This is because the sound is generated in two parts. The krak is caused by the lightning bolt superheating the air that it passes through, causing it to expand rapidly. The thoom that follows is the sound of air rushing in to fill the space just vacated by all of that hot air. If your character generated a beam or area that very rapidly reduced the air to absolute zero, there would be a noise quite like thunder without the initial krak, as the air that is being cooled would drastically decrease in volume and the surrounding air would rush in to fill the void.

[Spokavriel]

Perhaps more like a thoom-crackle because allot of what is in the air will condense and freeze with exposure to such a low temperature.

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Okay, with magically-appearing ice aside, what gas in the air can be formed/condensed into ice/a solid?

I'm unsure about oxygen and nitrogen. If I remember correctly, carbon dioxide can be formed into dry ice, but would there even be enough of it in the air to use, even while being in a populous city like Tokyo?

I don't think that water vapor is considered a gas, but I reckon that its usefulness would be dependent on the humidity of a given area.

[Spokavriel]

Stopping atomic motion there is no desert on earth dry enough to not end up with some snow. If there are any clouds in the sky you will have an instant rain storm of all that moisture possibly even concentrated enough to wrap it all around your cold point.

[Wyrd]

Oxygen has a freezing point of 50 degrees Kelvin, well above absolute zero. The majority of the elements that comprise our atmosphere will freeze solid at that temperature. The biggest limiting factor on how fast the ice formed would be how fast you were freezing things and how fast air rushed in to be in turn frozen. About the only elements that do not have a freezing point are the Noble gasses, because they have so little inter-atomic interaction that they are unable to form a solid even if brought to absolute zero. Even hydrogen freezes at 14.01 Kelvin. More complicated molecules tend to have higher freezing points, though there are compounds such as Buckminster Fullerene that, do to their unusual structure, might remain liquid even when approaching 0. There will always be plenty of material from which to form ice unless in a vacuum or on a planet with a very strange atmospheric composition.

[Spokavriel]

I think it has something to do with the valence electrons. Preventing certain atoms from being able to become stable. Make a molecule with something else and it might let it lock in but most of those tests were attempted with as close to pure as the scientists could manage.

[LurkingGrue]

I'm wondering what something at absolute 0 would look like.

My first thought was that it should have to reflect all light coming at it so as to not absorb any energy. No idea if that is valid, but as a consequence it would mean the object would be very bright (like snow on a sunny day in winter).

Or maybe it absorbs the energy but just makes the energy disappear magically (take that laws of conservation!). Which would make it black.

Or maybe it just somehow manages to avoid interacting with the light and other radiation completely, which would make it invisible.

In any case, it strikes me as implausible for it to interact with light and other radiation "normally" while being at absolute 0.

[Wyrd]

In any case, it strikes me as implausible for it to interact with light and other radiation "normally" while being at absolute 0.

While remaining at absolute zero. If light is absorbed by the object, something has to happen to that energy to keep it from warming the object. Possibilities include the 'absolute zero effect,' whatever it's nature, continuing to counter any energy added to the system. In 'stoning', mentioned above, the author described a stoned object as being gray and feeling like room temperature because it didn't really absorb or radiate heat, so it felt neither hot nor cold. Effectively, since the molecules were locked in place, they could absorb light and later release it in the forms of electrons shifting energy levels, but were locked in relative position with the atoms of the rest of the object they were part of when it was first stoned.

[Dartz]

An interesting thought just occured to me....


While the target may be at absolute zero, all the gases around it will have frozen solid. So, you've got Frozen gases suddenly introduced into an environment where the mean temperature's somewhere between 10 and 20 on average. They're going to suck a lot of heat out of the surrounding atmosphere, rapidly heating up themselves. I wonder if your going to not have the solid oxygen or nitrogen reacting violently, bursting as it quickly liquidates and then boils, sending cryogenic shrapnel flying everywhere. Popping and banging and fizzing and throwing of freezing bits of itself.

Hell... I wonder if the target itself won't rapidly warm up in such an uncontrolled manner and just break up. Nasty way to go that.

[TerraMimic]

I wonder if your going to not have the solid oxygen or nitrogen reacting violently, bursting as it quickly liquidates and then boils, sending cryogenic shrapnel flying everywhere. Popping and banging and fizzing and throwing of freezing bits of itself.

Hell... I wonder if the target itself won't rapidly warm up in such an uncontrolled manner and just break up. Nasty way to go that.

Hmm... reminds me of what happens in Metroid: Prime, when you hit enemies with repeated shots from the Ice Beam. Meaty ice chunks flying everywhere.

(I know it's not really the same thing, but it is kinda the visual I got from reading that description.)