How hot can you get?

Question

There seem to be a lot of limits in this universe we live in, so I was wondering if maybe there is a limit as to how hot anything can get. Going back to chemistry, the higher the temperature of an object, the faster the molecules/atoms/whatever are moving, down at the very small level. Right? Well, with the speed of light the fastest anything can travel, supposedly, shouldn't the temperature at which the atoms are moving at the speed of light be the hottest anything can get? I understand this would be extremely hot and probably not even close to anything we have observed, but I am mainly just interested if there is such a limit.

Answer 1

Before the atoms would reach this temperature, they would have such high kinetic energy that when they collided they would brak apart into their fundamental particles, quarks and so forth.  This is the basis for particle colliders such as SLAC.  It is theorized that at extremely high temperatures, you then expose the extra dimensions at which point you are left with fundamental strings.  I'm not sure temperature has any physical significance once this happens, which is why they generally give these "temperatures" in terms of the energy, in electron-volts.

Google "high energy physics" for a more coherent discussion.

Answer 2

the universe can be infinitely hot. It was at the instant  it began