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At a molecular level, molecules will always vibrate to some degree. This vibration causes what is known as Brownian motion and molecular vibrations cause bumps and collisions against other molecules which result in random motion, much like how vibrators may bounce of one another when in contact and vibrating.

Why molecules will always vibrate is due to the laws of thermodynamics. Only at absolute zero (0 K) will a molecule cease to vibrate. However, absolute zero can never be achieved artificially, though it is possible to reach temperatures close to it through the use of cryocoolers. This is the same principle that ensures no machine can be 100% efficient. Laser cooling is another technique used to take temperatures to within a billionth of a degree of 0 K.

At temperatures near 0 K, nearly all molecular motion ceases and ΔS = 0 for any adiabatic process. Pure substances can (ideally) form perfect crystals as Temperature approaches 0. Max Planck's strong form of the third law of thermodynamics states the entropy of a perfect crystal vanishes at absolute zero. The original Nernst heat theorem makes the weaker and less controversial claim that the entropy change for any isothermal process approaches zero as Temperature approaches 0. The implication is that the entropy of a perfect crystal simply approaches a constant value.

The Nernst postulate identifies the isotherm T = 0 as coincident with the adiabat S = 0, although other isotherms and adiabats are distinct. As no two adiabats intersect, no other adiabat can intersect the T = 0 isotherm. Consequently no adiabatic process initiated at nonzero temperature can lead to zero temperature. In other words, it is impossible by any procedure to reduce the temperature of a system to zero in a finite number of operations.

Therefore molecules will alwyas be moving due to the impossibility to drive the temperature down to 0 K, which if it were possible would stop movement entirely.

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16y ago

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