13.8 billion years ago, a mysterious singularity had a big bang. With the big bang, the universe was born, and time and space were born at the same time. The concept of temperature was born at the moment of the Big Bang. As for temperature, I believe that everyone is familiar with it. We are all affected by temperature and feel the changes in temperature all the time.
It is precisely because the earth has a warm and adaptable environment that it can become a beautiful ecological planet, and can give birth to life and human beings. It can be seen that the importance of temperature to mankind began after mankind entered the age of civilization. However, because the ancients lacked the support and help of science and technology, they could only do some exploration and research on temperature from a macro perspective, and it was naturally impossible to get the essence of temperature.
Until mankind entered the age of science and technology, we had continued research and exploration of temperature, and finally understood the nature of temperature changes. With the continuous advancement of human science and technology, we continue to create high temperatures. On May 27, 1994, the Plasma Physics Laboratory of Princeton University in New Jersey created the highest temperature limit that humans can currently reach. This maximum temperature is 510 million degrees Celsius.
This is the highest temperature that scientists have created by using a Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, using a plasma mixture of deuterium and tritium. The high temperature of 510 million degrees Celsius makes many people feel incredible. This is the power of technology. When marveling at this incredible temperature, some people have this question: what material can withstand such a high temperature?
I believe many of my friends know that the most powerful high-temperature materials for human beings can only withstand high temperatures of more than 3,000 degrees Celsius, no matter how high they are. It is precisely because of the limitation of high-temperature materials that many human technologies cannot be realized. For example, if controlled nuclear fusion is to be realized, a very powerful high-temperature-resistant material is needed, but humans are currently unable to create such materials.
Since humans’ heat-resistant materials can only withstand thousands of degrees of high temperature at most, how can a high temperature of 510 million degrees Celsius be created, and what kind of material can resist? I believe that many of my friends have such doubts. For this mystery, let’s do some simple analysis and research.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand this doubt. As long as we have a certain understanding of the nature of temperature, the answer will naturally come out. So what is the nature of temperature? I believe that a small partner knows it, and its key is the movement of molecules.
Macroscopic physics defines temperature as follows: temperature is a physical quantity that expresses the degree of heat or cold of an object, and in microphysics, temperature also has a definition: that is, the degree of violent thermal motion of the molecules of the object. We all know that the essence of many macroscopic things needs to be answered in the microscopic world, and the same is true for temperature changes.
The essence of temperature is actually the thermal motion of molecules. When the thermal motion of molecules becomes more and more intense, the temperature of the object will continue to rise. Conversely, when the thermal motion of molecules continues to decrease, the temperature of the object will continue to decrease. . There is a theoretical limit to the slowing down of the thermal motion of molecules, which is to stop. When the molecules no longer move, the temperature reaches the lowest, which is the absolute zero as we know it.
But from quantum mechanics, we understand that the movement of particles cannot be completely stopped, so absolute zero is only a theoretical limit value, which can never be achieved in the real world. Now we understand that the essence of temperature change is the thermal movement of molecules. In fact, it has another meaning, that is, for the temperature to be manifested, a large number of molecules must be involved.
If the number of molecules is very small or there is no room for molecules to exist at all, then the manifestation of temperature will be very weak or even impossible to manifest. Let’s take the process of sunlight coming from the sun to the earth as an example. During the process of the sun’s energy particles coming to the earth, its temperature in space is difficult to truly reflect. The reason is that there is an environment in space that accepts a vacuum. , The density of particles is extremely low.
Therefore, the background temperature of the universe is so low, and if we stand outside the earth, you can’t really feel the high temperature of the sun. But when the sun’s energy particles enter the earth’s atmosphere, it is completely changed. At this time, a large number of particles distributed in the atmosphere are impacted by energy, their kinetic energy will continue to increase, and the thermal movement will be violent. At this time, the temperature of the atmosphere will change. Rise, so that the temperature of the earth also begins to rise.
For another example, in our daily life, the reason why we can feel cold and heat is mainly because the human body itself is a collection of particles. When energy particles enter the human body, the thermal motion of molecules in the human body will change. At this time, we will Can feel cold and hot. The reason why there is body temperature inside the human body is also because there is energy in the human body, which intensifies the thermal movement of the molecules in the body, thereby increasing the temperature in the body.
After understanding this, let’s look at the high temperature of 510 million degrees Celsius created by scientists in the laboratory. How did this temperature come from? In fact, scientists got it through particle acceleration and impact. We all know that according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, when the speed of an object keeps increasing, its kinetic energy also keeps increasing.
The main reason why an asteroid hits the earth is so powerful that it has achieved a very high speed in space. After it hits the ground at such a speed, it will generate energy to destroy the earth. When the speed of an object is infinitely close to the speed of light, the energy will also be close to infinity, and what can make the speed infinitely close to the speed of light, currently human beings can only accelerate particles.
Therefore, through the particle accelerator, we can accelerate the particles to infinitely close to the speed of light, and then two particles collide, and a powerful energy will be generated. This energy can also be expressed by temperature. However, this temperature cannot be truly reflected. The reason is very simple. The number of particles is too small. When scientists conduct particle collision experiments, they just cause two particles to collide.
With such a small number of particles, there is naturally no so-called molecular thermal motion. Therefore, even if a high temperature of 510 million degrees Celsius is generated in the accelerator, this high temperature cannot be truly reflected. It is only a numerical value, and naturally it will not affect the material. What a big impact. This is why there are materials that can withstand high temperatures of 510 million degrees Celsius.
This result actually makes us think of a powerful detector that may be realized in the future, which can enter the interior of the star to explore. I believe many friends know that the surface temperature of the sun is about 6000 degrees Celsius, and the temperature at the center is about 20 million degrees Celsius. Such a high temperature seems very high, but compared with the high temperature of 510 million degrees Celsius created by humans, it is not worth mentioning.
But the insignificant temperature in front of the highest temperature created by mankind prevents mankind from exploring the sun. Because we don’t have materials that can withstand the high temperature on the surface and inside of the sun, even if humans have breakthroughs in materials science in the future, they can withstand high temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, but facing the high temperature of tens of millions of degrees in the center of the sun, we may Still unable to resist.
Therefore, it is estimated that it is difficult to achieve access to the interior of the sun through materials. Even if it can be done, it may require human beings to develop technology to a very high level. This takes a very long time, so is there any other way to do it? In fact, there is another way that may be able to do it, and that is to isolate the high temperature of the sun.
The reason why the sun’s ultra-high temperature can damage the probe is that the probe itself is a molecular assembly. After the sun’s energy touches the probe, it will aggravate the thermal motion of molecules, thereby decomposing the probe and preventing us from going deep into the sun internal.
But we can create a kind of energy placement, in which no molecules exist within the scope of this energy shield. In this case, the energy of the sun cannot reflect its terrible high temperature. The detector is wrapped in the energy cover, and naturally it will not be affected by the high temperature inside the sun, so that we can easily go out of the sun and explore.
Perhaps the above method is the way for human beings to enter the sun and enter the exploration in the future. As long as it is realized, we can explore not only the interior of the sun, but also the interior of other stars. We must know that in the universe of star families, the sun is only a small one, and the interiors of the more massive stars are the most valuable for exploration. Perhaps we can peek into some of the mysteries of the universe from the inside of massive stars, and we look forward to this day.