This machine helps to experimentally find an estimation of absolute zero

How can we really know something? If you listen to anti-criticism, you can believe we can’t. But if you exceed the allegory of Plato’s cave, you can begin to identify basic truths, through logic and experiments, on which to build. An important fundamental construction block is absolute zero. Most of us take scientists in their word about where it is related to the temperatures we can understand, but Marb built this machine to find it for itself through experimentation.

In the real world, no one can physically bring anything to Absolute Zero. It is a bit like the paradox of the dichotomy of Zeno: you cannot reach zero, because there is nothing more great than what you are cooling, so you are approaching. But it is possible to obtain In fact Close and that’s why Marb did it here.

The experiment works by expanding gas as much as it is feasible, reducing the average energy in any given volume and resulting in cooling … on average. If you have ever used canned air to clean a dirty keyboard, you have experienced that effect yourself.

But Marb did not have a way to expand gas enough to get closer to absolute zero. Instead, I needed a way to develop a mathematical function to estimate value.

To achieve that, he used a glass syringe (gase -destined), a hot air gun, an amplifier thermocoury and a adefruit flight time sensor. An Arduino Nano Board took measures from them. He measured the temperature and position of the piston in pairs while Marb heated the syringe. Using those values, Marb was able to calculate the volume of gas for each given temperature.

From there, estimating Absolute Zero was a matter of finding a function that fits the measured and extrapolar values ​​to zero.