Absolute Zero and the Conquest of ColdIn a sweeping yet marvelously concise history, Tom Shachtman ushers us into a world in which scientists tease apart the all-important secrets of cold. Readers take an extraordinary trip, starting in the 1600s with an alchemist's air conditioning of Westminster Abbey and scientists' creation of thermometers. Later, while entrepreneurs sold Walden Pond ice to tropical countries -- packed in "high-tech" sawdust -- researchers pursued absolute zero and interpreted their work as romantically as did adventurers to remote regions. Today, playing with ultracold temperatures is one of the hottest frontiers in physics, with scientists creating useful particles Einstein only dreamed of. Tom Shachtman shares a great scientific adventure story and its characters' rich lives in a book that has won a grant from the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Absolute Zero is for everyone who loves history and science history stories, who's eager to explore Nobel Prize-winning physics today, or who has ever sighed with pleasure on encountering air conditioning. |
Contents
Winter in Summer | 1 |
Exploring the Frontiers | 16 |
Battle of the Thermometers | 36 |
Copyright | |
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absolute zero Académie American ammonia Amontons apparatus atoms Bacon became become believed boiling Boyle Boyle's Cailletet caloric Carnot centigrade century chemist chemistry Clausius commercial cooling Cooper pairs Cornelis Drebbel degree above absolute discovery Drebbel electrical resistance electricity electrons energy engine experimental experiments explanation exploration Fahrenheit Faraday Frederic Tudor freezing glass Gorrie Hampson heat and cold Heike Kamerlingh Onnes invention James Dewar James Joule Joule Joule's Kamerlingh Onnes Kapitsa Kelvin laboratory Landau later Leiden Linde liquefaction liquefied gases liquefied helium liquefied hydrogen liquid air liquid helium liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen low temperatures lower machine magnetic field mathematical Mayer measure mercury metal motion natural natural-ice nitrogen Olszewski Onnes's peratures philosopher physicist physics point of water predicted pressure produced Ramsay refrigeration resistance Robert Royal Institution Royal Society Rudolf Clausius scale scientific scientists substance superconductivity superfluid theory thermometer Thomson tion Tudor ture vessel Waals Wróblewski wrote