This is based on the assumption that you have heard the theory that for Absolute Zero to be plausible, all contact with any other matter to the device or w/e that is causing the temperature to reach absolute zero must be severed.

That is: If you have a device that can, theoretically, reach absolute zero, for it to work it must have no connection with anything that has a temperature.

Alright, now here is what I am thinking.

First of all: I know nothing about vacuums, gravity and light. So if this is completely flawed, just tell me and let this thread die. I am a complete noob at shit like this, and I am not very smart. T_T

Here we go.

If a vacuum was created on Earth to house an 'absolute zero machine', I am guessing it would probably not work because of gravity, light, etc. The same could go for device in space.

If there was a way to produce anti-gravity, would a device to cause absolute zero to occur work in it if all light or w/e was blocked, and it was in a vacuum?

Like I said: I am a fucking moron when it comes to deep science like this. I probably sound like an idiot, and I am a little high.

So... whateva

Whether or not the thing your trying to cool is touching anything or not, it is impossible to reach absolute zero.

However, if for some reason you could cool something to absolute zero if there was nothing at all interacting with it, your method would not shield this thing from all possible interactions in the universe.

Even if you could create an anti-gravity device, which is currently believed to be impossible, and shield it from all light, there a still a number of things that would interact with it from neutrinos to WIMPs( if these even exist).

And if you could somehow shield this thing from all these outside influences, which would be theoretically possible, there are things that are ubiquitous throughout the entire universe which would be impossible to stop. Things such as virtual particles, dark energy and zero-point energy, which could possibly all be the same thing, are always present everywhere in the universe with no possible way to shield against, so they would always present some form of interaction with the object.

It's pretty simple actually. It's kinda like how you can never really get something 100% pure, or why you can never get a perfect vacuum.

I think a better metaphor would be that nothing with mass can travel the speed of light.

The closer you get to that point it becomes exponentially harder to get there 100%

^^VERY nice metaphor.

even if you got it to absolute zero when you tried to take it's temp it would not longer be absolute zero

this is a nice page on how they obtain near zero K temperatures. pretty interesting stuff, there should be some videos around on superfluids and related topics.

If you really want to get into the fine details, its because of the heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Thanks I never knew how they did that.

Anyone know how they take the temperature of only a few atoms? Or how they know that the atoms are correctly positioned and such?