Scientists create coldest temperature ever in a lab to help understand quantum mechanics

Scientists have broken the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in a lab, achieving a temperature just trillionths of a degree away from absolute zero by dropping freezing, magnetized gas down a tower 120 metres tall.

The exact temperature scientists measured was 38 trillionths of a degree above -273 degrees Celsius — the closest that has ever been measured to absolute zero in a lab.

Absolute zero in Kelvin, a temperature thought to be impossible for anything in the universe to reach, is -273.15 degrees Celsius.

The feat was achieved while German researchers were aiming to study the wave properties of atoms to gain a better understanding of quantum mechanics, a discipline of science that examines how the world functions at the subatomic level, where particles can exist in two places simultaneously.

Researchers at the lab at the Centre for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity at the University of Bremen created one of “the coldest places in the universe” for just a few seconds, according to a German press release on the research.