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Comment by andrewcooke | Hacker News Reader

i'm curious why you dismiss it on this. won't the minimum in the "natural universe" be ~2.7K (the background temperature)? while they seem to be a few thousandths of a K from zero, if i understand the text right.

your post was pretty strong / dismissive, so i'm wondering what your (presumably powerful) argument is. what other systems in the universe are "naturally" in a quantum ground state?

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There are some places in the "natural universe" that are colder than the CMB. That's because they aren't in equilibrium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero#Very_low_temperat...

thanks, i was wondering if there was something like that, but couldn't imagine how it would work (i deleted my other answer earlier because it seemed to all be getting a bit unpleasant; i still think that sentence from the article is pretty inoffensive).

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>Therefore, the statement suggests (with certainty) that there are no intelligent/scientific aliens capable of creating lower temperatures. I take issue with that interpretation.

Yes I'm certain that is what the author is trying to convey. I suggest you re-read the article replacing the line that offended you with "This computer is kept in a very cold place".

>In short, the statement is pompous, insulting and almost certainly incorrect.

The evidence is on his side. You just derided the author for his level of certainty, then suggested he's almost certainly wrong because aliens might exist.

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