Temperature relevant coordinates are fixed. An exceptionally suitable system is the ideal gas, which can provide a temperature scale that matches the absolute Kelvin scale. The Kelvin scale is defined on the basis of the second law of thermodynamics. In the previous section certain properties of temperature were expressed by the zeroth law of thermodynamics. It is also possible to define temperature in terms of the second law of thermodynamics which deals with entropy. The second law states that any process will result in either no change or a net increase in the entropy of the universe. This can be understood
Temperature at first and then turns negative. Since temperature is the inverse of the derivative of the entropy, the temperature formally goes to infinity at this point, and switches to negative infinity as the slope turns negative. At energies higher than this point, the spin degree of freedom therefore exhibits formally a negative thermodynamic temperature. As the energy increases further by continued population of the excited state, the negative temperature approaches zero asymptotically. As the energy of the system increases in the population inversion, a system with a negative temperature is not colder than absolute zero, but rather it has a