highesttemperature

Highest temperature is a concept used across physics to describe either the maximum temperature that can be reached by a system or the greatest temperature observed in nature. In thermodynamics, temperature measures the average kinetic energy of microscopic constituents. There is no known universal upper limit within the current understanding of physics; however, a theoretical ceiling called the Planck temperature provides a natural bound derived from fundamental constants. The Planck temperature is approximately 1.4168 × 10^32 kelvin and marks the scale at which quantum gravitational effects are expected to become important. Beyond that, existing theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics are not expected to provide reliable predictions.

Natural occurrences and laboratory experiments have produced temperatures far below the Planck scale. The highest air temperature reliably recorded on Earth is 56.7 degrees Celsius (134 degrees Fahrenheit) at Furnace Creek Ranch, Death Valley, in 1913, though some measurements have been disputed. In controlled experiments, momentary plasmas reaching trillions of kelvin have been produced in heavy-ion collisions, creating quark–gluon plasma for fleeting fractions of a second. The Sun’s core has an internal temperature around 15 million kelvin, while temperatures in stellar interiors and supernovae can greatly exceed that, albeit not in a uniform manner.

Cosmology describes a history where the early universe briefly reached temperatures much higher than those produced in laboratories, with temperatures possibly approaching the Planck scale during the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The Planck temperature is a theoretical limit; it is not known how to create or measure such a state with current technology, and physics at that regime is not yet understood.