The Coldest and Hottest Temperatures in the Known Universe (Infographic)

Earth may seem like it has a lot of diversity, and I suppose that it does. There are organisms that are smaller than the tip of a needle, and there a few that are the size of a building (like the blue whale), or a person (like the Nomura’s jellyfish) . But in truth, many things on our planet are really rather tame. At least, they are tame as far as our experiences go. Take temperature. This may vary by fifty degrees from winter to summer, give or take a little, but this really isn’t much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

For example, the hottest temperature, known as “Planck Temperature,” hits more than 100 million million million million million degrees, or 1032 K. As it has been noted, “You just can’t put this kind of temperature into perspective. There’s simply no way to wrap your head around this number. Saying that 1032 K is hot is like saying that the universe occupies some space” — We can’t go any higher than this, because if we try to, physics breaks. Literally. Gravity grows as strong as the other fundamental forces and, in essence, they all become one force.

That is what we are looking for: the math behind that one force. That is the theory of everything. A kind of quantum gravity. Unfortunately, for now, it is beyond us, and so the highest temperature remains the ceiling, as it were. But now I am getting a bit off topic.

The point, however, is that the hottest hot and the coldest cold will blow your mind, and you should check out this infographic to get a better idea of what hot and cold really mean. Scroll below for a link to a larger version:

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