5 Stars Documentaries (032)
Absolute Zero (2007)
Produced by: Meridian Productions and Windfall Films
Produced by British Emmy Award winner David Dugan, in collaboration with Meredith Burch of Meridian Productions in Washington, D.C., this television special demonstrates how science, fueled by serendipitous insight and sheer determination, moves forward - at times fitfully - gradually advancing our understanding of the world. The programs illuminates the very human process of science by focusing on fascinating characters, both familiar (Einstein, Fahrenheit and Galileo) and neglected (Boyle, Dewar and Onnes).
A unique blend of science, cultural history and adventure story, this documentary explores key concepts, significant individuals and events in the field of low-temperature physics and the enormous impact that the mastery of cold has had on society through such technologies as air conditioning, refrigeration and liquefied gases.
Absolute Zero features the struggles of philosophers, scientists and engineers over four centuries as they attempted to understand the nature of cold, to explore its deepest reaches, to create the “cold technologies” that have transformed society and to seek a deeper understanding of matter itself.
>> List of episodes:
1. THE CONQUEST OF COLD
This program chronicles the major discoveries leading towards the mastery of cold, beginning with King James I’s court magician, Cornelius Drebbel, who managed to air condition the largest interior space in the British Isles in 1620. Other stories will include the first “natural philosopher”, Robert Boyle, a founder of the Royal Society in Great Britain; the Grand Duke Ferdinand II de Medici’s involvement in the creation of the first thermometer; the establishment of the laws of thermodynamics by three young scientists, Sadi Carnot, James Joule and William Thomson; and Michael Faraday’s critical achievement in liquefying several other gases which set the stage for the commercial application of cold to refrigeration and air conditioning.
2. THE RACE FOR ABSOLUTE ZERO
This program focuses on the fierce rivalry that took place in the laboratories in Britain, Holland, France and Poland as they sought the ultimate extreme of cold. The program follows the extraordinary discoveries of superconductivity and superfluidity and the attempt to produce a new form of matter that Albert Einstein predicted would exist within a few billionths of degrees above absolute zero.
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* Review (adaptated) by Absolute Zero Campaign
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