Watch the Program For Teachers

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A MALEVOLENT FORCE

This segment:

• reviews the first known attempt to control cold when alchemist Cornelius Drebbel tried in 1620 to chill the interior of a large church.
• features a scientist trying to recreate Drebbel's feat.
• reports on the pioneering experiments done by Robert Boyle to understand the nature of cold.

running time 8:59

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QUANTIFYING COLD

This segment:

• presents how Daniel Fahrenheit and Anders Celsius created the first temperature scales.
• recounts how Guillaume Amontons first came to speculate that cold had an absolute limit.
• notes how an understanding of the true nature of cold was derailed by the incorrect caloric theory proposed by Antoine Lavoisier.

running time 10:17

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THE ICE TRADE

This segment:

• details how Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) disproved Lavoisier's caloric theory.
• recreates Michael Faraday's experiments revealing how heat could be absorbed from the air to cool its surroundings.
• reports on the first industrialization of cold through sales of natural ice cut from northern ponds in winter.

running time 8:39

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COLD ENGINES

This segment:

• details how experiments on the steam engine led to the development of artificial refrigeration.
• recounts how James Joule was first to measure the exchange rate between movement and heat.
• points out how these early discoveries led to the laws of thermodynamics.
• summarizes how commercial refrigeration developed and its impact on people's lives.

running time 10:41

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THE COLD RESOURCE

This segment:

• chronicles how Clarence Birdseye's investigation into the differences between quick vs. slow freezing of fish led to the creation of frozen foods.
• details how, by controlling temperature, Willis Carrier determined how to control humidity, a principle that led to the invention of air-conditioning.
• notes the social changes brought about by air-conditioning.

running time 9:41

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THE HOLY GRAIL

This segment:

• introduces James Dewar, a Scottish scientist who set out to liquefy hydrogen, the last of the so-called permanent gases.
• explains the theoretical breakthrough that paved the way for liquefying the permanent gases.
• introduces Dewar's competitor, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a Dutch scientist also seeking to liquefy hydrogen.
• features the different approaches taken by Dewar and Kamerlingh Onnes to reach their goal.
• details the process the scientists' used to reach colder and colder temperatures.

running time 10:22

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A TEMPERATURE CASCADE

This segment:

• recreates how Dewar successfully liquefied hydrogen.
• follows the next race between Dewar and Kamerlingh Onnes to liquefy helium, a recently discovered inert gas.
• recreates how Kamerlingh Onnes created liquid helium.
• notes the role competition plays in science.

running time 9:33

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SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

This segment:

• explains how Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity while investigating how materials conduct electricity at very low temperatures.
• demonstrates how superconducting magnets work.
• reports on the discovery of superfluids.
• details how Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein came to predict that a new state of matter—one that behaved according to quantum mechanical rules—could be produced at temperatures just above absolute zero.
• shows how particles would change into overlapping waves in this state of matter, known as the Bose-Einstein condensate.
• follows the race between teams in Boulder, Colorado, and at MIT to create this condensate.

running time 10:19

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A NEW STATE OF MATTER

This segment:

• details approaches scientists took to achieve the condensate.
• explains how the Boulder team used magnetic trapping, lasers, and evaporative cooling to achieve the first Bose-Einstein condensate.

running time 11:55

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APPLICATIONS

This segment:

• describes how one scientist found a way to slow down the speed of light.
• reports on the development of quantum computers.
• shows how far down the scale scientists have traveled and explains why reaching absolute zero is not possible.

running time 7:55