Absolute Zero Press Kit

 

Q & A with tom shachtman

A Conversation with Tom Shachtman - Author of Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold, the inspiration for the PBS documentaries, Absolute Zero

Q. Why did you decide to write this book?

T.S.: I was intrigued by the notion that research into low temperatures has been going on intensely for nearly four centuries and it is a major scientific field involving many thousands of people today, with ramifications in many areas of everyday living -- yet it is almost unknown to the public.

Q. Why do you think the topic is important?

T.S.: Few areas of scientific endeavor touch on more aspects of our daily life and technologies than low-temperature physics, from refrigerators and frozen foods to space rockets, MRIs, and electronic communications. The topic is also important because it shows us how narrow is the band of temperature in which we human beings live, compared to the vast range of possible temperatures, especially toward the bottom of the scale.

Q. What are some of the most interesting things you learned along the way?

T.S.: I was fascinated by the investigations of Robert Boyle in the 17th century into the nature of cold, and the great "race to the cold pole" that involved so many teams of scientists at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. Although I have a BS degree, I never knew anything about these matters, or about such things as how Fahrenheit came up with his temperature scale, or how scientists today are working with the new form of ultra-cold matter they call a Bose-Einstein condensate. It was also an interesting challenge to turn what we knew about such things into visual material for the documentary.

Q. What was your favorite part of writing the book?

T.S.: Solving the puzzle of how Drebbel "air-conditioned" Westminster Abbey in 1620 -- the focus of the book’s first chapter and the documentary’s opening scene was the most fun for me, as that aspect of the history of cold had never been written about before.

Q. What do you hope people will learn from the documentaries?

T.S.: I hope viewers come away from the documentaries with a new appreciation of the thought and care that scientists have put into the study of cold over almost four centuries. They've teased out information on one of the most basic aspects of matter and life.

Q. Why should people watch the documentaries?

T.S.: The documentaries are exciting illustrations of how science has been done since the early 1600s, the era when scientific research itself began; the films bring to life in unforgettable ways a half-dozen important figures that have been all but lost to modern understanding, from Boyle and Carnot to Dewar and Kamerlingh Onnes. The films are also a testament to what motivates and energizes all of science -- our insatiable curiosity about the world in which we exist.

Q. What’s the most interesting aspect of the modern scientists depicted in the documentaries?

T.S.: How excited about their discoveries they are, how hard they work, how tough they are on their own wrong turns and mishaps, and how eager they are to tell the rest of us about it all. I’ve yet to meet a low-temperature researcher who isn’t a terrific ambassador for his or her specialty -- and for the process of science. Also, all of them are very aware of the history of their science, and are delighted that we are communicating that history as a path toward understanding the research they are doing today.

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