Absolute zero
(DVD) 

Based on the book: Absolute zero and the conquest of cold / by Tom Shachtman.

Originally broadcast on public television as an episode of the television program Nova in 2007.

Anamorphic widescreen (16:9) format; Dolby digital.

Special features: DVD-ROM access to printable materials for educators (PDF format).

Narrator, Neil Ross.

Presents the history of low-temperature research and the quest for ever-lower notches on the thermometer. The conquest of cold opens with experiments in the 1600s that asked what heat and cold are and whether they are different aspects of the same phenomenon. Shows how the experiments that settled those questions helped stoke the Industrial Revolution. The race for absolute zero dramatizes the rivalry between Scottish researcher James Dewar and Dutch physicist Heike Onnes, who plunged cold science to the forbidding realm at which oxygen and then hydrogen turn into liquids. Shows how the quest continues today as scientists pioneer super-fast computing near absolute zero--the ultimate chill of -459.67⁰ F, where atoms slow to a virtual standstill.

Not rated.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation,ESI-0307939.

DVD; Region 1; NTSC.

Closed-captioned; Optional audio-described soundtrack.