COLD SCIENCE
How low temperatures can change the state of elements and both injure and heal living tissue
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD
DID YOU KNOW? The lowest body temperature an adult has survived is 13.7 degrees Celsius
When is something considered to be cold? There isn’t a hard-and-fast rule that when something reaches a certain temperature it can be deemed cold. However, at the point where the temperature is closing in on the freezing point of water, it’s safe to say it’s pretty cold. Anything below zero degrees Celsius is known as sub-zero, and below sub-zero is where atoms and molecules start to truly become ‘frozen’. Although countries around the world use either Celsius or Fahrenheit, the universally recognised measurement for temperature is known as Kelvin. This base unit was named after British physicist William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, for his work in thermodynamics during the 19th century. The scale runs from the lowest theoretical temperature, known as absolute zero, up to the hottest known temperatures in the universe. Absolute zero occurs at zero Kelvin, equal to -273.15 degrees Celsius. Molecules at this starting point for temperature would have theoretically lost any kinetic energy – the energy associated with movement.