How Absolute Zero Was Discovered

Absolute zero is the theoretical limit to how cold temperature can reach. The quest to calculate the value of it started in the 1700s, but wasn't accurately done so until the mid 1800s by British physicist William Thomson.

[jonahansen]

Great video. It underscores how hella smart these guys were considering the environment in which they lived

[rickunderwood]

Love the correlation of the images to the narrative. Thank you for a very interesting program!

[deamon]

Your hard work will finally pay out! Excellent content, already recommended it to two friends. You should see a giant growth in the next 3 Months; Keep up the amazing work!

[inglepropnoosegarm]

One of the big problems with modern science is a lack of good beards.

[stevenslater]

Driving to work one cold morning, the morning talk radio host announced, “…and the temperature this morning is —- there is no temperature! It’s zero degrees out there! I muttered to my carpool buddy, “What about the other 460 (almost) degrees?” He gave me a blank look.

[RobertJackman]

Excellent. I'm particularly glad that someone "from the other side of the pond" took the trouble to distiguish enoblement as an honour and not as some aristocratic origin. Also you got the rationale behind the Lord Kelvin correct. Double plus good sir!

[Galileosays]

Note: The idea of a spring traces back to the law of Hooke. Hooke constructed the first vacuum pump for Boyle. Boyle had received the drawings from Otto von Guerincke. Boyle must have experienced that the pulling the plunger of the pump felt like extending a spring. Therefore Boyle was probably naming the phenomenon the spring of air. He also used in fact the law of Hooke to explain the relation between pressure (the pulling force) and the enlargement of the volume. The idea of a spring is also related to the misconception in those days that gas molecules where static in space, they could move their position by compression or decompression. This misconception made it impossible to explain the heat capacity of a gas. After the theory of Maxwell and Boltzmann the gas laws became understandable, the kinetic theory of gases was born.

[colinellicott]

Great historical review thx. I would have liked a deep dive into what temperature actually is, and the various instruments, and ways to measure it.

[philliprobinson]

Hi. We need more "history of science" videos like this one. It was really cool. Cheers, P.R.

[gibbogle]

Thanks. Fascinating information, filling big gaps in my high-school education.

[robertgoss]

Terrific program. It cleared the fog for me, especially the efforts, and the results, of Lord Kevin's work.

[michaelzumpano]

Well done! I love the reveal at the end, Kelvin!

[R.B.]

An interesting side quest opportunity missed was that the scale Celsius initially proposed was inverted the way we think about it today, in that water boiled at 0°C and froze at 100°C. Absolute zero would have been at 373.16 if we had standardized on that, and critically we wouldn't have a cap on the negative temperature of things. I believe this was because boiling point of water was the set point and you would need 100 units of heat to boil ice and for something above the boiling point of water, it was with respect to how many units of heat you'd need to remove to stop water from boiling. It makes sense from that perspective, but absolute Kelvin and modern Celsius are more practical.

[Historical_Science_Engineering]

I love this channel! It's one of the inspirations for my own, which also covers historical science, though so far I've put much of my focus on biology.

[KwK-ct]

This was a treat for my brain as always 👌
Thanks for your continuous good work.
Stay cool 😉

[DrFrank-xjbc]

When we visited Sweden, and the university of Uppsala, I forgot to look for the original thermometers by Anders Celsius.
You should have mentioned this guy as well.

Thermo- Dynamics and Temperature measuring techniques always were my favorite subjects in Physics / Metrology.

My experimental seminar speech at the physical institute for low temperatures was about heat pumps (refrigerator, Philips cooling machines).

In the II. Physics Institute @ RWTH Aachen, we had several liquefying machines, and one of my tasks was organizing the supply for cryogenic fluids (Air, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Helium) for all cryogenic experiments like Super Conductivity, and for providing Temperature fix points for calibration purposes, down to about 1.4K.
I also designed precision current sources and measurement devices for the various electrical thermometers (PT100, carbon resistors, diodes, FeAu/NiCr thermocouples, ...)

[jrgaskin]

springiness. that's a super cool way to think of it.

[MrAB-xcdu]

A very great video to be seen by everyone and over and over again. Purely scientific topic. Azeem Baloch

[michaelinminn]

Expertly delineated.
Thomson = Kelvin I had no idea. thanks
As I write, it is 244K in Minn.🥶

[unchosenid]

I remember in freshman chemistry using only a wooden ruler (like you had in grade school), a capillary tube sealed at one end, an ice water and boiling water bath, and a small blob of mercury, which I used to calculate absolute zero within 2 degrees. I don't remember if that was C or F though. I was SHOCKED at what one could figure out using such simple tools and methods.