Friday, January 8, 2010

What is the physically the slowest an object could travel?

The slowest an object can travel is not stopped - that how can it be considered travelling if it is at rest. This is not what the asker was asking whether it was relatively stopped or not.





The slowest speed physically is an object travel at a planck length over planck time. These are the smallest units of time and space in the physical universe.What is the physically the slowest an object could travel?
Another word for speed is velocity, and that is measured as distance over time. If the distance is zero, then the velocity is zero.





So, it is possible for an object to be stationary.





Now if you want to make this question complex rather than simple, everything has motion relative to something else in the big picture, for example, an object without motion on the Earth's surface in reality is rotating around the Earth's rotational axis, as well as revolving around the sun, and our solar system is moving in the Milky Way...it can get complex!





Speed and temperature are unrelated.What is the physically the slowest an object could travel?
The slowest an object could travel is not moving at all. Of course, velocity is relative, so your speed actually depends on your frame of reference.





Temperature does have a finite lower limit, known as absolute zero. It is 0 Kelvin, or 鈭?73.15 degrees Celsius (鈭?59.67degrees Fahrenheit). This represents the point at which a particle has no kinetic energy, and is theoretically impossible to reach.





Temperature does not have an upper limit, because temperature is a function of velocity of a particle, and asymptotic to infinity as velocity approaches the speed of light. Temperature is essentially the average kinetic energy of molecules in the object. Kinetic energy is a function of velocity, given by the equation K=(1/2)*mass*velocity^2. Because the velocity of a particle can always get closer to the speed of light, the temperature has no upper limit.





Note to the above answer: Temperature and velocity are very much related. Temperature is the kinetic energy of particles in the measured object, which is dependent on the mass and velocity of the particles.

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