Talk:Absolute zero

real world conditions

What do you mean by real world conditions? I believe that on Earth (in the outdoors) the lowest temperatures are around −50 to −60 °C. However in the laboratory people routinely measure at nanokelvin temperatures (10⁻⁹ K), which is very close to the absolute zero.--Paul Wormer 09:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics say it's unattainable? Peter Jackson 09:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I see that Ro changed the wording somewhat, but I still don't know what "real world" is supposed to mean. Do you mean "outside the laboratory" or "in nature"? Indeed the 3rd law states the unattainability and 10⁻⁹ K is very close to zero, but not equal to zero. Some experiments are already done at a few hundred picokelvin, so IMHO the non-attainability is pretty academic. --Paul Wormer 14:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Translational motion?

I'm asking this not because I suspect it is wrong, but because I did not understand it upon reading the article.

At absolute zero, the particles should be still, but cannot be because of Heisenberg, at least from the quantum-mechanical viewpoint. Surely

$\Delta x\times \Delta p_{x}\geq {\frac {\hbar }{2}}$

should mean that particles cannot be perfectly still? Currently, it is not clear if the definition includes the particles being completely still. Could someone who understands this in greater detail write a more easily understandable introduction, please? Johan A. Förberg 22:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)