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Co. 281, 495 89, 82 Cl. 284, 48 34, 3€ 99. Prof. G.R. Jain, op. cit., p. 125–
"The range of temperatures existing in Nature is again very wide, and what little has come under the measuring rod of a physicist has revealed very striking contrasts. The temperature of ice physicists call zero and the temperature of boiling water 100 degrees (centigrade). The temperatures of bodies colder than ice are called minus temperatures and mathematical calculations show that the lowest possible temperature in Nature cannot be less than minus 273 degrees. Mercury hardens into a solid mass at minus 40 degrees. Just as the steam is converted into liquid water on cooling, so is air by artificial cooling converted into liquid air at minus 190 degrees. Helium gas in converted into liquid or solid helium at minus 269 degrees. Some other interesting temperatures are : Gold melts at
1,062 Degrees Platinum melts at
1,7770 Tungsten" "
3,400 Temperature of burning charcoals 1,300 Temperature of electric carbon arc 3,500 Surface temperature of the sun 5,500 Central temperature of the sun two crores" Highest temperature estimated in stars by Eddington is four crores of degrees. (See The Internal Constitution of the Stars, by Eddington.) If we probe into our own atmosphere we find that the temperature gradually falls as one goes higher up until at about a height of 11 miles just over the equator temperature has a value minus 55 degree a temperature well suited to petrify even mercury. Further on up to a height of 23 miles the temperature remains steady, beyond which it increases to that of spring season, i.e., about 30°C. This is enough to show that temeprature of things is measureable from one point of view and the infinite shades of it, it is impossible to enumerate. The extremes of temperatures existing in the regions of the Hell are expressed in the following verse of Chaha Dhala:
गिरि सम लोह गलै जम जाय, ऐसी शीत उष्णता थाय । 100. J.S. Zaveri and Muni Mahendra Kumar, Microcomology...,
pp. 53, 54—
130
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