Quote:
Originally Posted by durkadurka33
How do you have a temperature higher than infinity K?
As said, negative K.
An example: suppose you're looking at a group of atoms (say in a laser), and your measure of temperature is the orbital states of the electrons (and assume just two states for purposes of this discussion). At 0K, all electrons are in the ground state. As the temperature rises, the distribution of electrons changes, with some of the electrons going into the excited state. As the temperature increases, the difference in energy between the two states gets (relatively) reduced, compared to the energy in the system, so eventually at infinite temperature half the electrons are in the ground state, and half in the excited state. So the percent of electrons in the excited state is proportional to temperature, and with 50%, you're at infinite temperature.
But, as in a laser, the electrons are pumped into the excited state, and you can have more than 50% of the electrons in the excited state, which leads to a higher than infinite temperature. If you put a negative temperature in to the equations that predict the electron's distribution, you can describe the distribution of those electrons.