Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman, Houghton Mifflin,
$25, ISBN 0395938880
IN A QUEST for the ultimate chill, Tom Shachtman leads us on a whistle-stop
tour of the conquest of cold. From the early attempts of Cornelis Drebbel to air
condition Westminster Abbey nearly 500 years ago to modern low-temperature
physics, Shachtman describes the discovery and search for the holy grail of
absolute zero, where strange things happen.
On the way he takes in the comfortable indulgences of modern air conditioning
and refrigerators, and shows how achieving these was a challenge in itself. The
first portable…
