[NMScience] Absolute Zero on TV next week

[Vannetta R. Perry]

Absolute Zero
Premieres on NOVA
>From refrigeration to MRIs, the study of cold has transformed modern life.
NOVA
invites you on a journey through time from the first alchemists who tried to
manufacture cold to the modern-era Nobel Laureates who strived to reach its
ultimate destination: Absolute Zero.

Cold. We take it for granted every time we open a refrigerator or switch on
an air
conditioner. Yet the conquest of cold is a triumph of science and technology
- as
important in the modern world as our mastery of heat. This exploration of
the cold
frontier is a great saga of science that has led to space travel, quantum
computers and
frozen food.

This winter, NOVA chronicles the race to conquer cold in the film Absolute
Zero.
Produced by Emmy-Award winning producer David Dugan in collaboration with
executive producer Meredith Burch, and based on Tom Shachtman's book,
Absolute
Zero and the Conquest of Cold, this NOVA special will be presented as two
hour-long
programs on January 8 and January 15 at 8:00 p.m. (check local listings).

Absolute Zero features the struggle of philosophers, scientists and
engineers over four
centuries as they attempt to understand the nature of cold, from dark
beginnings to an
ultra-cold end point. Along the way they created cold technologies that have
transformed the way we live, and gained insights into the nature of matter
itself. NOVA
brings this frosty subject to life using a combination of colorful historic
recreations and
insightful interviews with science historians and Nobel Prize winners.

Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold (January 8) begins with 17th century
court
magician Cornelius Drebbel, who successfully created the world's first
air-conditioning
system in Westminster Abbey. Other memorable characters include Daniel
Fahrenheit
and Anders Celsius who created the first thermometers; Frederic Tudor who
became
one of the richest men in America simply deciding to farm and sell ice; and
Clarence
Birdseye who made his name with frozen food.

Absolute Zero: The Race for Absolute Zero (January 15) tells the gripping
story of the
decades-long scientific race between Scottish physicist James Dewar and
Dutch
physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, as the two men fought to reach the coldest
temperature. Their discoveries opened the door to the modern era of
refrigeration and
air conditioning. Absolute Zero's final chapter climaxes in the
Nobel-winning
breakthrough, the production of a new form of matter that Albert Einstein
predicted
would exist within a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. This is
a
temperature so cold that the physical world as we know it transforms
completely,
electricity and fluids flow without resistance, and the speed of light can
be reduced to 38
miles per hour. Three men, in two different labs, were awarded the Nobel
Prize for
being the first to see the peculiar state of matter that occurs near
absolute zero.

Rich reenactments, eccentric characters, and the scientists' compelling
story-telling will
leave viewers with insights into the extraordinary science of cold, as they
travel on this
epic journey towards absolute zero.

"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," says author Tom Shachtman. "The films are a testament to what
motivates
and energizes all of science - our insatiable curiosity about the world in
which we exist."

Absolute Zero was produced by Windfall Films in collaboration with Meridian
Productions. David Dugan, producer/director; Meredith Burch, executive
producer and
co-producer. Tom Shachtman, writer; Justin Badger, editor; Russell J.
Donnelly,
principal scientific consultant.

Absolute Zero was made possible by grants from the National Science
Foundation, the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the BBC.
Now entering its 35th year of broadcasting, NOVA is produced for PBS by the
WGBH
Science Unit at WGBH Boston. The director of the WGBH Science




Greg Swift
Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Postal address:  Mail Stop K764,  Los Alamos National Laboratory,  Los
Alamos NM 87545
Package address:  Mail Stop K764,  TA-3 SM-30 Bikini Atoll Road,  Los Alamos
NM 87545
Phone 505-665-0640, fax 505-665-7652

(License exception: TSPA/Correspondence)