Science Journalism Strikes Again!

Okay, I often think professional scientists are too hard on science reporting in the media. Often enough I see that the media simply focuses on something that the scientist or research group is less certain of. Other times the media will confuse causation with correlation, or misinterpret the significance of a discovery. Still, I find these to be minor infractions by my standards. What bothers me is when the media conveys something blatantly wrong.

The headline for a BBC science article (which are normally of good quality) reads, "CERN lab goes 'colder than space'"

Excuse me? I was not aware that space had a temperature or chemistry of any kind. That is the definition of space: Nothing, nada, zip, zilch and other assorted mono and disyllables. Perhaps an astronomer can clear this up for me, and then kick the ass of the astronomer who told me otherwise, but space has no temperature.

Not a low temperature, not a middling lukewarm tapioca feel, but it has no temperature. Temperature is a function of matter. Things are "colder" because they're gaining heat, and "warmer" because they're losing heat. Space is a void, there is no matter. That's not to say a thermometer won't express a temperature in space. That's because a thermometer will have a temperature. Light from a sun or star is going to heat it up.

The fact that vacuums have no temperature is actually applied in everyday life. The next time you fill a thermos, remember that a vacuum is used as the insulator. The temperature of the liquid inside is a function of the kinetic motion of molecules bumping around and kicking back all over the place. The faster they move, the higher the energy, the higher the temperature. The molecules in your thermos release and lose energy by bumping into molecules in the air, the molecules of the vessel, and by releasing "hot" molecules in the form of vapor. When a molecules reaches a vacuum, it has nothing to bump into, and nowhere to disperse it's kinetic energy which is why the vacuum in your thermos is so handy. Of course there is more than one way for a molecule or atom to release energy, just ask the people who were part of the Manhattan Project.

However a void cannot be temperate in anyway, and the statistic the article cites for the temperature of space is 2.7 Kelvin (-270C; -454F). This temperature no doubt comes from this highly hypothetical discussion by a NASA scientist. Still, the scientist gives us the temperature of the thermometer, not that of space.

Otherwise the article is good, I'm very interested to see what comes out of the LHC, and whether we'll answer any of the big questions of physics.

Asking for the temperature of space is like asking about the center of the surface of a ball, it specifies a dimension that doesn't exist in that context.