On 2014-11-03 17:06:02 +0000, Lostgallifreyan said:

rickman wrote in :

It takes the same amount of heat to
raise a substance 1 degree at 77 °K as it does at room temperature.

Ok, but when I read (or hear on BBC radio science programs) that it takes FAR
more effort (energy) to pump from 2K to 1K than it does from 300K to 299K,
what am I supposed to make of that given what you just said?

That's energy to keep all the heat from the surrounding environment
out. In a system completely separated from hot material or radiation,
such as space, the energy is exactly the same, because of the way
temperature is defined.

--

Percy Picacity