Gino Segre - A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe

PENGUIN BOOKS

A MATTER OF DEGREES

Gino Segr is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. An internationally renowned expert in high-energy elementary-particle theoretical physics, Segr has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Department of Energy. He lives in Philadelphia. This is his first book.

Praise for A Matter of Degrees

Segrs informal style reads like a dinner-party conversation with a physicist.

The Washington Post

Unlike many of his colleagues, Segr knows how to communicate with nonspecialists, and this is one of the most deft and accessible books Ive read in a long while. In a chapter on the environment and the problem of global warming, Segr describes the complex exchange of heat between the oceans and atmosphere. Its a superb introduction to one of the most important issues of our times, and for this chapter alone the book is worth its price.

Los Angeles Times

Endearing Segrs writing is clear and within his explorations of temperature, he manages to tell a great deal about the history of the field through its science and characters. For readers with a broad curiosity about big questions in science, [Segr] provides an original and often creative angle on our universe.

San Francisco Chronicle

Segr has an insatiable curiosity about every aspect of temperatures role in scientific inquiry and human destiny. A Matter of Degrees is an articulate exposition of the wonders of scientific inquiry, a testament to Segrs faith in the power of the human mind to comprehend our place in the universe.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A useful addition to popular scientific literature. [Segr] manages to tweak imaginations with accessible and engaging writing, quiet humor and occasional I-didnt-know-that moments.

The Dallas Morning News

In his bright and breezy style, [Segr] does a good job of keeping this mass of ideas under control his writing is always accessible. Segr succeeds in portraying considerable swathes of modern science. He has an easy familiarity with his material, even when he strays far from his home ground of physics, and he is up to date with many of todays scientific debates.

New Scientist

[A Matter of Degrees] should charm attentive readers from all walks of life.

American Scientist

Well written, interesting and informative brisk and wide-ranging treatment of many fundamental temperature-related topics.

Nature

Gino Segr

What Temperature

Reveals About

the Past and

Future of Our

Species,

Planet, and

Universe

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 2002

Published in Penguin Books 2003

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Copyright Gino Segr, 2002

All rights reserved

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted works: Fire and Ice from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt & Co., LLC. Excerpt from The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket from Lord Wearys Castle by Robert Lowell. Copyright 1946 and renewed 1974 by Robert Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. Cosmic Gall from Collected Poems 19531993 by John Updike. Copyright 1993 by John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS : : Richard Ellis; 55: Sezione di Zoologia La Specola del Museo di Storia Naturale dellUniversit degli Studi di Firenze; 56: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza; 69, 74, 89, 106, 114, 123, 134, 137, 167, 181: Felice Macera; 95: A. Geike, The Life of Sir Roderick Murchison (John Murray, London, 1875); 141: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Photo Library, National Undersea Research Program; 144: from V. Robigou, J. R. Delaney, and D. S. Stakes, Large massive sulfide deposits in a newly discovered active hydrothermal system, the high rise field, endeavor segment, Juan de Fuca Ridge, in Geophysics Research letters 20 (1993), courtesy Veronique Robigou, University of Washington School of Oceanography; 184: AIP (American Institute of Physics) Emilio Segr Visual Archives; 195: Courtesy Sudbury Neutrino Observatory; 198: Photograph by C. E. Wynn-Williams, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection; 228: AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives, Chandrasekhar Collection; 243: Rijksmuseum Voor de Geschiedenis de Natuurwetenschappen te Leiden, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives; 265: United States Patent and Trademark Office, courtesy of Gene Dannen; 270: Photo by Paul Ehrenfest, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr Visual Archives.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS :

Segr, Gino.

A matter of degrees : what temperature reveals about the past and future of our species, planet, and universe / Gino Segr.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-64017-3

1. Temperature measurementsPopular works. I. Title.

QC271.S44 2001

53650287dc21 2001046942

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Sabon Designed by Francesca Belanger

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For Bettina

M OST OF US are likely to start our day with a series of questions: Where do I have to go? What time is it? How cold is it? In going to sleep, we anticipate tomorrows answers to those same questions. The measurements of length, time, and temperature, implicit or explicit, set our lifes rhythms. Im particularly fascinated by temperature, the subtlest of the three. While new ideas expand our horizons, the everyday understanding of length and time has not changed appreciably in millennia. Weve had rulers and clocks for a long time. This is not the case with temperature. Even though we can agree that a baby immediately knows hot from cold, our ability to measure temperature is only a few hundred years old. Our scientific understanding of even a gass temperaturethe average kinetic energy of molecules in thermal equilibriumis much more recent.