How Hot Can It Get?
Why Physics Stack Exchange recommends it
Physics Stack Exchange users cite it as the source of specific claims, such as the pin head at 15 million degrees and the Planck temperature wavelength, that they then ask the community to verify or explain.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2017 to 2024.
What it is
A 2012 Vsauce video in which Michael Stevens explores the extremes of temperature, from human body heat and the Sun to the Planck temperature and the idea of an absolute hot. It mixes everyday comparisons (such as a pin head at 15 million degrees) with blackbody radiation and Wien's law, with guidance credited to minutephysics and PHD Comics.
What people said
Cites Jus12 · 2017-05 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Would a pin head heated to 15 million degrees Celsius kill everyone in a 1000 mile radius?”
The YouTube video How Hot Can it Get? [this video] contains, at the 2:33 mark, the following claim: A pin head heated to 15 million degrees will kill everyone in a 1000 miles radius. On what basis can this claim be true? Some of the things I can think of: Radiation of the metal as it cools down Energy released in fusion (not sure if this works for an iron pin) Would the damage be only to organic matter or will it destroy other structures within that radius?
Cites Adrian · 2020-01 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Does the Planck length imply that the smallest different between any two wavelengths must also have a limit?”
I was looking at a video called How Hot Can It Get [this video] , and at 7:08 [this video] , the host Michael states that if an object were to reach a temperature of $1.41 \times 10^{32}$ K (planck temperature) , the radiation it would emit would have a wavelength of $1.616 \times 10^{-26}$ nm (planck distance) . He then goes on to say that we don't know what would happen at that point. However, this thought brought about another question in my mind. Is there a quantum delta wavelength? Does the planck length imply that difference between two different wavelengths could not be smaller than it? I'm thinking that one could test this by taking a beam of white light and put it through a prism to diverge i
Cites CPlus · 2024-07 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Why the Sun has a higher temperature than humans?”
The thermal energy per gram of matter of the Sun is definitely higher than of humans, being between 6000K and 15000000K depending on where in the Sun. What you are probably thinking of is the fact that humans put out more power per unit volume than the Sun, described here [this video] . The reason for that is, even though the matter of the Sun has a lot more thermal energy per unit volume, the Sun is very large, and is a sphere, meaning that the Sun has a very low surface area to volume ratio. Energy can only escape from the surface, so there is so much energy inside the Sun that cannot escape. Humans, being small, have vastly more surface area per unit volume relative to their size, that the ave