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Text : WTC-SWE

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(male narrator) The greatest
triumph of civilization

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is often seen as
our mastery of heat.

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Yet our conquest of cold
is an equally epic journey,

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from dark beginnings,
to an ultra cool frontier.

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For centuries, cold
remained a perplexing mystery

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with no obvious
practical benefits.

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Yet in the last 100 years,

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cold has transformed
the way we live and work.

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Imagine supermarkets
without refrigeration,

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skyscrapers
without air-conditioning,

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hospitals without MRI machines
and liquid oxygen.

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We take for granted
the technology of cold,

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yet it has enabled us
to explore outer space

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and the inner depths
of our brain.

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And as we develop new
ultra cold technology

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to create quantum computers
and high-speed networks,

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it will change
the way we work and interact.

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How did we harness something

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once considered to fearsome
to even investigate?

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How have scientists and dreamers
over the past four centuries

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plunged lower and lower
down the temperature scale

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to conquer the cold
and reach its ultimate limit?

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A Holy Grail as elusive
as the speed limit of light--

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"Absolute Zero,"
up next on "NOVA."

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(narrator)
Extreme cold has always held

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a special place
in our imagination.

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For thousands of years, it
seemed like a malevolent force

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associated with death
and darkness.

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Cold was
an unexplained phenomenon.

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Was it a substance, a process,
or some special state of being?

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Back in the 17th century,
no one knew,

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but they certainly
felt its effects

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in the freezing London winters.

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(Simon Schaffer)
17th-century England
was in the middle

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of what's now called
"the little Ice Age."

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It was fantastically cold
by modern standards.

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You have to imagine
a world lit by fire

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in which most people are
cold most of the time.

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Cold would've felt
like a real presence,

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a kind of positive agent that
was affecting how people felt.

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(narrator)
Back then, people
felt at the mercy of cold.

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This was a time
when such natural forces

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were viewed with awe
as acts of God.

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So anyone attempting to tamper
with cold did so at his peril.

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The first to try was an
alchemist, Cornelius Drebbel.

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On a hot summer's day in 1620,

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King James I and his entourage

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arrived to experience
an unearthly event.

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Drebbel, who was also
the court magician,

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had a wager with the King

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that he could turn summer
into winter.

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He would attempt
to chill the air

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in the largest interior space
in the British Isles,

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the great hall of Westminster.

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[orchestra plays]

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Drebbel hoped
to shake the King to his core.

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(Andrew Szydlo)
He had a phenomenally
fertile mind.

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He was an inventor
par excellence.

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His whole world was steeped

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in the world of alchemy,

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of perpetual motion machines,

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of the idea of time, space,

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planets, moon, sun, gods.

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He was a fvently religious
man.

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He was a person
for whom nature presented

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a phenomenal--
a galaxy of possibilities.

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Dr. Andrew Szydlo, a chemist

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with a lifelong fascination
for Drebbel,

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enjoys his reincarnation
as the great court magician.

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Like most alchemists, Drebbel
kept his method secret.

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Dr. Szydlo wants
to test his ideas

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on how Drebbel created
artificial cold.

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When Drebbel was
trying to achieve

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the lowest temperature possible,
he knew that ice, of course,

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was the freezing point, or the
coldest you could get normally.

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But he would've been
aware of the facts

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through his experience that
mixing ice with different salts

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could get you
a colder temperature.

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(narrator)
Salt will lower the temperature
at which ice melts.

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Dr. Szydlo thinks Drebbel
probably used common table salt,

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which gives
the biggest temperature drop.

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But salt and ice alone
would not be enough

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to cool the air
within such a large interior.

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Drebbel was famous for designing
elaborate contraptions,

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a passion shared by Dr. Szydlo,

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who has an idea
for the alchemist's machine.

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So here, we would've
had a fan,

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which would've been
turned over

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blowing warm air
over the cold vessels there,

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and as the air blows
over these cold jars,

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we would've had, in effect,

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the world's first
air-conditioning unit.

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(narrator)
But could this really
turn summer into winter?

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(Dr. Szydlo)
The idea was to stir it in
as well as possible

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in the 5 seconds
that you have to do it.

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(narrator)
Dr. Szydlo stacks
the jars of freezing mixture

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to create cold corridors
for the air to pass through.

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We can feel
it's very cold,

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and the fact
I could feel cold air

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actually falling on my hands,

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because cold air, of course,
is denser than warm air,

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and one can feel it
quite clearly on the fingers.

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[squeaking]

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(narrator)
The vital question:

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would the gust of warm air
become cold?

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I can feel certainly
a blast of cold air hitting

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as that 2nd cover
was released.

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Well, temperature,
we're on 14 at the moment.

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Yes, keep it going.

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That's definitely
the right direction.

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(narrator)
King James would've been shaken

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by his encounter
with man-made cold.

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Had Drebbel written up
his great stunt,

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he might've gone down in history

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as the inventor
of air-conditioning.

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Yet it would be
almost 3 centuries

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before this idea
would actually take off.

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To advance knowledge
and conquer the cold

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required
a very different approach--

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the scientific method.

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The fundamental question,
"What is cold?"

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haunted Robert Boyle
nearly 50 years later.

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The son of the Earl of Cork,
a wealthy nobleman,

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Boyle used his fortune to build
an extensive laboratory.

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Boyle is famous
for his experiments

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on the nature of air,

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but he also became
the first master of cold.

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Believing it to be an important,
but neglected subject,

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he carried out
hundreds of experiments.

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(Simon Schaffer)
He worked through
very systematically

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a series of ideas
about what cold is.

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Does it come from the air?

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Does it come
from the absence of light?

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Is it that
there are strange,

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so-called "frigoric"
cold-making particles?

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(narrator)
In Boyle's day,
the dominant view was

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that cold is a primordial
substance that bodies take in

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as they get colder
and expel as they warm up.

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It was this view that Boyle
would eventually overturn

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by a set of carefully devised
experiments on water.

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First, he carefully weighed
a barrel of water

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and took it outside in the snow,
leaving it to freeze overnight.

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Boyle was curious
about the way water expanded

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when it turned to ice.

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He reasoned that if once
the water turned to ice,

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the barrel weighed more,

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then perhaps cold was
a substance after all.

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But when they reweighed
the barrel,

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they discovered
it weighed exactly the same.

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(Simon Schaffer)
So what must be happening,
Boyle guessed,

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was that the particles of water
were moving further apart,

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and that was the expansion,
not some substance

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flowing into the barrel
from outside.

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(narrator)
Boyle was becoming
increasingly convinced

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that cold was not a substance,

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but something
that was happening

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to individual particles,
and he began to think back

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to his earlier experiments
with air.

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As matter like air becomes
warmer, it tends to expand.

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Boyle imagined the air particles
were like tiny springs,

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gradually unwinding and taking
up more space as they heat up.

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(Simon Schaffer)
Boyle's conclusion here was

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that heat is a form of motion
of a particular kind

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and that as bodies cool down,
they move less and less.

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(narrator)
Boyle's longest-published book
was on the cold;

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yet he found
its study troublesome

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and full of hardships, declaring
that he felt like a physician

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trying to work
in a remote country

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without the benefit
of instruments or medicines.

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To properly explore
this country of the cold,

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Boyle lamented the lack
of a vital tool,

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an accurate thermometer.

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[harpsichord & strings play]

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(narrator)
It was not until
the mid-17th century,

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that glassblowers in Florence

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began to produce accurately
calibrated thermometers.

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Now it became possible to
measure degrees of hot and cold.

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Like the air
in Boyle's experiment,

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heat makes
most substances expand.

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Early thermometers used alcohol,
which is lighter than Mercury

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and expands much more with heat.

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So these Florentine thermometers
were sometimes

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several meters long
and often wound into spirals.

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But there was still one major
problem with all thermometers,

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the lack of a universally
accepted temperature scale.

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There are all kinds
of different ways

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of trying to stick numbers to
these degrees of hot and cold,

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and they, on the whole, didn't
agree with each other at all.

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So one guy in Florence makes
one kind of thermometer,

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another guy in London
makes a different kind,

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and they just don't even
have the same scale,

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and so there was
a lot of problem

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in trying to standardize
thermometers.

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(narrator)
The challenge was
to find events in nature

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that always occur
at the same temperature

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and make them fixed points.

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At the lower end of the scale,

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that might be ice
just as it begins to melt.

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At the upper end, it could be

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wax heated to its melting point.

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The first temperature scale

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to be widely adopted was devised
by Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit,

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a gifted instrument maker
who made thermometers

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for scientists and physicians
across Europe.

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He had several fixed points.

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He used a mixture of ice, water,
and salt for his 0 degrees;

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ice melting in water
at 32 degrees;

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and for his upper fixed point,

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the temperature
of the human body at 96 degrees,

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which is close
to the modern value.

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One of the things that
Fahrenheit was able to achieve

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was to make thermometers
quite small,

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and that he did
by using mercury

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as opposed to alcohol or air,
which other people had used.

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And because mercury
thermometers are compact,

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clearly if you're trying to use
it for clinical purposes,

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you don't want some big thing
sticking out of the patient!

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So the fact that he could make
them small and convenient,

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that seems to be what made

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Fahrenheit so famous
and so influential.

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(narrator)
It was a Swedish astronomer,
Anders Celsius,

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who came up with the idea
of dividing the scale

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between 2 fixed points
into 100 divisions.

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The original scale used
by Celsius was upside down,

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so he had the boiling point
of water as zero

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and the freezing point as 100,

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with numbers just
continuing to increase

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as we go below freezing.

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And this is
another little mystery

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in the history
of the thermometer

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that we just don't know
for sure.

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What was he thinking
when he labeled it this way?

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And it was
the botanist Linnaeus,

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who was then the president
of the Swedish Academy,

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who after a few years said,
"We need to stop this nonsense,"

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and inverted the scale

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to give us what we now call
"Celsius scale" today.

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(narrator)
A question nobody thought to ask

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when devising temperature scales
was, how low can you go?

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Is there an absolute lower limit
of temperature?

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00:14:58,234 --> 00:15:00,769
The idea that there might be

243
00:15:00,769 --> 00:15:05,074
would become a turning point
in the history of cold.

244
00:15:05,074 --> 00:15:09,778
(Hasok Chang)
The story begins with the French
physicist Guillaume Amontons.

245
00:15:09,778 --> 00:15:14,917
He was doing experiments heating
and cooling bodies of air

246
00:15:14,917 --> 00:15:18,454
to see how they expand
and contract.

247
00:15:18,454 --> 00:15:21,790
(narrator)
Amontons heated air
in a glass bulb

248
00:15:21,790 --> 00:15:24,326
by placing it in hot water.

249
00:15:24,326 --> 00:15:26,862
Just like a hot air balloon

250
00:15:26,862 --> 00:15:29,832
the air in
the glass bulb expanded

251
00:15:29,832 --> 00:15:34,870
as the increased pressure forced
a column of mercury up the tube.

252
00:15:34,870 --> 00:15:37,406
Then he tried cooling the air.

253
00:15:37,439 --> 00:15:40,409
(Hasok Chang)
He was noticing that, well,

254
00:15:40,409 --> 00:15:45,548
when you cool a body of air,
the pressure would go down.

255
00:15:45,548 --> 00:15:47,316
And he speculated, well,

256
00:15:47,316 --> 00:15:50,586
what would happen
if we just kept cooling it?

257
00:15:50,586 --> 00:15:54,156
(narrator)
By plotting this falling
temperature against pressure,

258
00:15:54,156 --> 00:15:57,359
Amontons saw that
as the temperature dropped,

259
00:15:57,359 --> 00:16:02,331
so did the pressure, and this
gave him an extraordinary idea.

260
00:16:02,331 --> 00:16:04,567
Amontons started to
consider the possibility,

261
00:16:04,567 --> 00:16:08,270
what would happen if you
projected this line back

262
00:16:08,270 --> 00:16:10,139
until the pressure was zero?

263
00:16:10,139 --> 00:16:14,210
And this was the first time
in the course of history

264
00:16:14,210 --> 00:16:16,078
that people have
actually considered

265
00:16:16,078 --> 00:16:19,081
the concept of an absolute zero
of temperature.

266
00:16:19,081 --> 00:16:22,017
Zero pressure;
zero temperature.

267
00:16:22,017 --> 00:16:26,522
It was quite the revolutionary
idea when you think about it

268
00:16:26,522 --> 00:16:28,624
because you wouldn't just think

269
00:16:28,624 --> 00:16:32,695
that temperature has
a limit of lower bound, or zero,

270
00:16:32,695 --> 00:16:36,765
because in the upper end,
it can go on forever,

271
00:16:36,765 --> 00:16:40,336
we think, until it's hotter
and hotter and hotter.

272
00:16:40,336 --> 00:16:42,471
But somehow, maybe there's

273
00:16:42,471 --> 00:16:46,141
a zero point
where this all begins,

274
00:16:46,141 --> 00:16:49,812
so you could actually
give a calculation

275
00:16:49,812 --> 00:16:53,482
of where this zero point
would be.

276
00:16:53,482 --> 00:16:55,784
Amontons didn't do that
calculation himself,

277
00:16:55,784 --> 00:17:00,389
but some other people did
later on, and when you do it,

278
00:17:00,389 --> 00:17:03,826
you get a value that's actually
not that far

279
00:17:03,826 --> 00:17:07,229
from the modern value
of roughly minus 273 centigrade.

280
00:17:11,229 --> 00:17:14,399
(narrator)
In one stroke,
Amontons had realized

281
00:17:14,399 --> 00:17:18,003
that although temperatures
might go on rising forever,

282
00:17:18,003 --> 00:17:22,440
they could only fall
as far as this absolute point,

283
00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:25,577
now known to be
minus 273 degrees centigrade.

284
00:17:25,577 --> 00:17:28,914
For him, this was
a theoretical limit,

285
00:17:28,914 --> 00:17:32,250
not a goal to attempt to reach.

286
00:17:32,250 --> 00:17:36,121
Before scientists could venture
towards this zero point,

287
00:17:36,121 --> 00:17:39,457
far beyond the coldest
temperatures on Earth,

288
00:17:39,457 --> 00:17:42,794
they needed to resolve
a fundamental question.

289
00:17:42,794 --> 00:17:45,897
By now,
most scientists defined cold

290
00:17:45,897 --> 00:17:49,000
simply as the absence of heat.

291
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:51,503
But what was actually happening

292
00:17:51,503 --> 00:17:55,907
as substances warmed or cooled
was still hotly debated.

293
00:17:55,907 --> 00:17:58,410
The argument of men
like Amontons

294
00:17:58,410 --> 00:18:02,714
relied completely on the idea
that heat is a form of motion,

295
00:18:02,714 --> 00:18:06,618
and that particles move
more and more closely together

296
00:18:06,618 --> 00:18:09,588
as the substance
in which they're in

297
00:18:09,588 --> 00:18:11,323
gets cooler and cooler.

298
00:18:11,323 --> 00:18:13,825
(narrator)
Unfortunately,
the science of cold

299
00:18:13,825 --> 00:18:16,795
was about to suffer
a serious setback.

300
00:18:16,795 --> 00:18:19,264
The idea that cooling was caused

301
00:18:19,264 --> 00:18:23,468
by particles slowing down
began to go out of fashion.

302
00:18:23,468 --> 00:18:27,105
At the end of the 18th century,

303
00:18:27,105 --> 00:18:30,809
a rival theory
of heat and cold emerged

304
00:18:30,809 --> 00:18:34,012
that was tantalizing appealing,
but completely wrong.

305
00:18:34,012 --> 00:18:36,948
It was called
"The Caloric Theory,"

306
00:18:36,948 --> 00:18:38,950
and its principal advocate

307
00:18:38,950 --> 00:18:42,354
was the great French chemist
Antoine Lavoisier.

308
00:18:45,891 --> 00:18:48,660
Like most scientists
at the time,

309
00:18:48,693 --> 00:18:53,398
Lavoisier was a rich aristocrat
who funded his own research.

310
00:18:53,398 --> 00:18:55,734
He and his wife,
Madame Lavoisier,

311
00:18:55,734 --> 00:18:57,669
who assisted
with his experiments,

312
00:18:57,669 --> 00:19:00,038
even commissioned
the celebrated painter David

313
00:19:00,038 --> 00:19:01,773
to paint their portrait.

314
00:19:03,408 --> 00:19:05,610
Lavoisier
carried out experiments

315
00:19:05,610 --> 00:19:10,148
to support the erroneous idea
that heat was a substance,

316
00:19:10,148 --> 00:19:13,318
a weightless fluid
that he called "caloric."

317
00:19:13,318 --> 00:19:17,622
He thought that in
the solid state of matter,

318
00:19:17,622 --> 00:19:20,992
molecules were just
packed close in together,

319
00:19:20,992 --> 00:19:25,096
and when you added more
and more caloric to this,

320
00:19:25,096 --> 00:19:27,065
the caloric would
insinuate itself

321
00:19:27,098 --> 00:19:30,735
between these particles
of matter and loosen them up.

322
00:19:30,735 --> 00:19:35,307
So the basic notion was
that caloric was this fluid

323
00:19:35,340 --> 00:19:38,510
that was, as he put it,
"self-repulsive."

324
00:19:38,510 --> 00:19:42,614
It just tended to break things
apart from each other.

325
00:19:42,614 --> 00:19:45,917
And that's
his basic notion of heat;

326
00:19:45,917 --> 00:19:49,654
as cold is just
the absence of caloric,

327
00:19:49,654 --> 00:19:52,424
or the relative lack
of caloric.

328
00:19:55,925 --> 00:20:00,096
(narrator)
Lavoisier even had an apparatus
to measure caloric,

329
00:20:00,096 --> 00:20:02,398
which he called a "calorimeter."

330
00:20:02,398 --> 00:20:05,668
He packed the outer compartment
with ice.

331
00:20:05,668 --> 00:20:09,172
Inside, he conducted experiments
that generated heat;

332
00:20:09,172 --> 00:20:11,241
sometimes
from chemical reactions,

333
00:20:11,241 --> 00:20:12,942
sometimes from animals

334
00:20:12,942 --> 00:20:15,845
to determine how much caloric
was released.

335
00:20:15,845 --> 00:20:19,249
He collected the water
from the melting ice

336
00:20:19,249 --> 00:20:21,317
and weighed it to calculate

337
00:20:21,317 --> 00:20:24,654
the amount of caloric
generated from each source.

338
00:20:26,356 --> 00:20:30,226
(Robert Fox)
I think the most striking thing
about Lavoisier

339
00:20:30,226 --> 00:20:33,329
is that he sees caloric
as a substance

340
00:20:33,329 --> 00:20:36,032
which is exactly comparable
with ordinary matter,

341
00:20:36,032 --> 00:20:38,668
to the point
that he includes caloric

342
00:20:38,668 --> 00:20:40,904
in his list of the elements.

343
00:20:42,338 --> 00:20:44,441
(Simon Schaffer)
Indeed, for Lavoisier,

344
00:20:44,441 --> 00:20:47,477
it's an element
like oxygen or nitrogen.

345
00:20:47,477 --> 00:20:51,181
Oxygen gas is made
of oxygen plus caloric,

346
00:20:51,181 --> 00:20:54,451
and if you take
the caloric away,

347
00:20:54,451 --> 00:20:56,786
presumably the oxygen
might liquefy.

348
00:20:56,786 --> 00:21:00,490
That's a very hard model
to shift

349
00:21:00,490 --> 00:21:02,759
because it explains so much,

350
00:21:02,759 --> 00:21:04,661
and indeed,
Lavoisier's chemistry

351
00:21:04,661 --> 00:21:06,963
was so otherwise
extraordinarily successful.

352
00:21:06,963 --> 00:21:12,068
However, Lavoisier's story about
caloric was soon undermined.

353
00:21:16,070 --> 00:21:21,142
(narrator)
But there was one man who was
convinced Lavoisier was wrong

354
00:21:21,142 --> 00:21:24,545
and was determined to destroy
the caloric theory.

355
00:21:24,545 --> 00:21:29,083
His name was Count Rumford.

356
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:35,956
Count Rumford had
a colorful past.

357
00:21:35,956 --> 00:21:38,159
He was born in America,

358
00:21:38,159 --> 00:21:41,228
spied for the British
during the Revolution,

359
00:21:41,228 --> 00:21:43,864
and after being forced
into exile

360
00:21:43,864 --> 00:21:46,967
became an influential
government minister in Bavaria.

361
00:21:46,967 --> 00:21:48,669
[loud BOOM!]

362
00:21:48,669 --> 00:21:50,438
Among his varied
responsibilities

363
00:21:50,438 --> 00:21:54,642
was the artillery works,
and it was here in the 1790s

364
00:21:54,642 --> 00:21:58,846
that he began to think
about how he might be able

365
00:21:58,846 --> 00:22:01,949
to disprove the caloric theory
using cannon boring.

366
00:22:04,849 --> 00:22:08,319
Rumford had noticed
that the friction

367
00:22:08,319 --> 00:22:13,825
from boring out a cannon barrel
generated a lot of heat.

368
00:22:13,825 --> 00:22:18,763
He decided to carry out
experiments to measure how much.

369
00:22:18,763 --> 00:22:22,367
He adapted the machine
to produce even more heat

370
00:22:22,367 --> 00:22:24,402
by installing a blunt borer

371
00:22:24,402 --> 00:22:28,406
that had one end submerged
in a jacket of water.

372
00:22:28,406 --> 00:22:31,876
As the cannon turned
against the borer,

373
00:22:31,876 --> 00:22:35,780
the temperature of the water
increased and eventually boiled.

374
00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:39,717
The longer he bored,
the more heat was produced.

375
00:22:39,717 --> 00:22:42,787
For Rumford, what
this showed was

376
00:22:42,787 --> 00:22:46,391
that heat must be
a form of motion,

377
00:22:46,391 --> 00:22:49,060
and heat is
not a substance,

378
00:22:49,060 --> 00:22:50,828
because you could generate

379
00:22:50,828 --> 00:22:53,064
indefinitely large
amounts of heat

380
00:22:53,064 --> 00:22:55,266
simply by turning
the cannon.

381
00:22:55,266 --> 00:22:59,170
(narrator)
Despite Count Rumford's
best efforts,

382
00:22:59,170 --> 00:23:01,940
Lavoisier's caloric theory
remained dominant

383
00:23:01,940 --> 00:23:05,243
until the end
of the 18th-century.

384
00:23:05,243 --> 00:23:07,645
His prestige as a chemist

385
00:23:07,645 --> 00:23:10,381
meant that few dared
challenge his ideas,

386
00:23:10,381 --> 00:23:12,750
but this did not protect him

387
00:23:12,750 --> 00:23:15,053
from the revolutionary turmoil
in France,

388
00:23:15,053 --> 00:23:17,822
which was about to interrupt
his research.

389
00:23:17,822 --> 00:23:21,459
At the height
of the reign of terror,

390
00:23:21,459 --> 00:23:25,029
Lavoisier was arrested
and eventually lost his head.

391
00:23:25,029 --> 00:23:28,900
Once he was guillotined,
his wife left France

392
00:23:28,900 --> 00:23:30,868
and eventually met Rumford

393
00:23:30,868 --> 00:23:35,773
when he moved to Western Europe
in the early 1800s.

394
00:23:35,773 --> 00:23:37,475
Rumford then married her.

395
00:23:37,475 --> 00:23:39,944
So he'd married the widow
of the man

396
00:23:39,944 --> 00:23:42,113
who founded the theory
that heat destroyed.

397
00:23:42,113 --> 00:23:44,916
(narrator)
The marriage was short-lived.

398
00:23:44,949 --> 00:23:49,120
After a tormented year,
Rumford left Madame Lavoisier

399
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:54,726
and devoted the rest of his
life to his first love, science.

400
00:23:54,726 --> 00:23:57,095
It would be nearly 50 years

401
00:23:57,095 --> 00:23:59,897
before Rumford's idea
that temperature is

402
00:23:59,897 --> 00:24:03,835
simply a measure of the movement
of particles was accepted.

403
00:24:03,835 --> 00:24:09,140
With heat, the particles,
what we now know as atoms,

404
00:24:09,140 --> 00:24:13,411
speed up, and with cold,
they slow down.

405
00:24:17,982 --> 00:24:20,818
Rumford's dedication
to science led him to become

406
00:24:20,818 --> 00:24:23,655
a founder of the Royal
Institution in London,

407
00:24:23,655 --> 00:24:26,824
and it was here that
the next major breakthrough

408
00:24:26,824 --> 00:24:29,360
in the conquest of cold
would occur.

409
00:24:31,262 --> 00:24:33,831
Michael Faraday,
who later became famous

410
00:24:33,831 --> 00:24:36,434
for his work
on electricity and magnetism

411
00:24:36,434 --> 00:24:38,703
would take
a critical early step

412
00:24:38,703 --> 00:24:41,306
in the long descent
towards absolute zero

413
00:24:41,306 --> 00:24:44,976
when he was asked to investigate
the properties of chlorine

414
00:24:44,976 --> 00:24:47,912
using crystals
of chlorine hydrate.

415
00:24:47,912 --> 00:24:49,948
This experiment was
potentially explosive,

416
00:24:49,948 --> 00:24:53,518
which is perhaps
why it was left to Faraday

417
00:24:53,518 --> 00:24:56,354
and perhaps also
why Dr. Andrew Szydlo

418
00:24:56,354 --> 00:24:58,756
is curious to repeat it today.

419
00:24:58,756 --> 00:25:01,259
We are about
to undertake

420
00:25:01,259 --> 00:25:03,227
an exceedingly dangerous
experiment

421
00:25:03,227 --> 00:25:08,199
in which Michael Faraday in 1823
heated this substance here,

422
00:25:08,199 --> 00:25:11,436
the hydrates of chlorine,
in a sealed tube.

423
00:25:13,871 --> 00:25:15,440
Is that sealed?

424
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,575
(man)
That's sealed, Andrew.

425
00:25:17,575 --> 00:25:19,744
(Andrew)
That's absolutely brilliant!

426
00:25:19,744 --> 00:25:21,646
(narrator)
In the original experiment,

427
00:25:21,646 --> 00:25:25,183
Faraday took the sealed tube
and heated the end

428
00:25:25,183 --> 00:25:27,885
containing the chlorine hydrate
in hot water.

429
00:25:27,885 --> 00:25:31,823
He put the other end
in an ice bath.

430
00:25:31,823 --> 00:25:35,660
Soon he noticed yellow
chlorine gas being given off.

431
00:25:35,660 --> 00:25:38,963
(Andrew)
Because the gas
is being produced,

432
00:25:38,963 --> 00:25:40,331
pressure's building up.

433
00:25:40,331 --> 00:25:44,335
Ray, this is where it starts
to get dangerous,

434
00:25:44,335 --> 00:25:48,273
so if you'll now take
a few steps back.

435
00:25:48,273 --> 00:25:52,176
(narrator)
When Faraday did the experiment,
a visitor, Dr. Paris,

436
00:25:52,176 --> 00:25:55,713
came by to see
what he was up to.

437
00:25:55,713 --> 00:25:58,082
Paris pointed out
some oily matter

438
00:25:58,082 --> 00:26:00,451
in the bottom of the tube.

439
00:26:00,451 --> 00:26:04,355
Faraday was curious and decided
to break open the tube.

440
00:26:06,291 --> 00:26:09,193
Right, so let's have
a look inside here.

441
00:26:12,997 --> 00:26:14,232
[ping!]

442
00:26:15,466 --> 00:26:18,169
(narrator)
The explosion sent
shards of glass flying.

443
00:26:18,169 --> 00:26:20,204
With the sudden release
of pressure,

444
00:26:20,204 --> 00:26:23,041
the oily liquid vanished.

445
00:26:26,376 --> 00:26:27,677
[ping!]

446
00:26:28,177 --> 00:26:29,980
And there we are.
Is that what happened?

447
00:26:30,180 --> 00:26:31,882
That's exactly
what happened.

448
00:26:31,882 --> 00:26:33,650
It popped open,
glass flew.

449
00:26:33,650 --> 00:26:35,352
And can you detect

450
00:26:35,352 --> 00:26:38,155
the strong smell
of chlorine? I can now.

451
00:26:38,155 --> 00:26:41,325
Absolutely. Well, he detected
the strong smell of chlorine,

452
00:26:41,325 --> 00:26:44,328
and this was
a major mystery for him.

453
00:26:44,328 --> 00:26:47,297
(narrator)
Faraday soon realized
the increased pressure

454
00:26:47,297 --> 00:26:52,302
inside the sealed tube
had caused the gas to liquefy...

455
00:26:52,302 --> 00:26:56,540
and when the tube was broken,
the oily liquid evaporated.

456
00:26:56,540 --> 00:27:00,477
Just as heat must be applied
to evaporate water,

457
00:27:00,477 --> 00:27:03,914
he saw that energy
from the surrounding air

458
00:27:03,914 --> 00:27:06,917
had transformed liquid chlorine
into a gas.

459
00:27:06,917 --> 00:27:09,653
In a brilliant deduction,
Faraday realized

460
00:27:09,653 --> 00:27:12,889
that by absorbing heat
from the air,

461
00:27:12,889 --> 00:27:16,059
he had cooled, or refrigerated,
the surroundings.

462
00:27:16,059 --> 00:27:21,798
Michael Faraday
had produced cold!

463
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,870
Later, he used the same
technique with ammonia,

464
00:27:26,870 --> 00:27:29,172
which absorbs even more heat.

465
00:27:29,172 --> 00:27:31,475
He predicted that one day

466
00:27:31,475 --> 00:27:34,278
this cooling might be
commercially useful.

467
00:27:39,347 --> 00:27:43,751
Faraday took no interest in
commercial exploitation...

468
00:27:43,751 --> 00:27:46,220
but across the Atlantic,

469
00:27:46,220 --> 00:27:51,192
a Yankee entrepreneur had
a very different philosophy.

470
00:27:51,192 --> 00:27:54,829
Frederic Tudor had a chance
conversation with his brother

471
00:27:54,829 --> 00:27:57,298
that led him on a path

472
00:27:57,298 --> 00:28:01,002
to become one of the richest men
in America.

473
00:28:05,706 --> 00:28:08,142
(Dennis Picard)
The story goes,
at the dinner table

474
00:28:08,142 --> 00:28:11,078
they were trying to decide what
they had on their father's farm

475
00:28:11,078 --> 00:28:12,780
they could make money off of.

476
00:28:12,813 --> 00:28:14,749
And certainly there was
a lot of rocks,

477
00:28:14,749 --> 00:28:16,817
but people weren't going
to pay for that,

478
00:28:16,817 --> 00:28:19,687
so they came up
with the idea of maybe ice,

479
00:28:19,687 --> 00:28:21,722
'cause some areas
did not have ice.

480
00:28:21,722 --> 00:28:25,159
And it seemed kind of crazy
at first, but it paid off.

481
00:28:25,159 --> 00:28:29,463
(narrator)
When Tudor began harvesting ice
from New England ponds,

482
00:28:29,463 --> 00:28:32,466
he soon realized he needed
specialized tools

483
00:28:32,466 --> 00:28:35,436
to keep up
with the huge demand.

484
00:28:35,436 --> 00:28:37,638
(Dennis Picard)
We had the saws,

485
00:28:37,638 --> 00:28:41,542
and the saws were an improvement
over the old wood saws.

486
00:28:41,542 --> 00:28:43,844
They have teeth that are
sharpened on both sides

487
00:28:43,844 --> 00:28:47,114
and set, so it cuts on both
the up and the down stroke.

488
00:28:51,417 --> 00:28:55,054
The crew could clear
a 3-acre pond easily

489
00:28:55,054 --> 00:28:57,456
in a couple of days.

490
00:29:02,761 --> 00:29:06,198
(narrator)
Tudor's dream to make ice
available to all

491
00:29:06,198 --> 00:29:08,534
was not confined to New England.

492
00:29:08,534 --> 00:29:12,738
He wanted to ship ice
to hot parts of the world

493
00:29:12,738 --> 00:29:15,441
like the Caribbean
and the deep South.

494
00:29:15,441 --> 00:29:18,277
(Dennis Picard)
When Tudor first tried
to convince shipmasters

495
00:29:18,310 --> 00:29:21,547
to put his load
of frozen water into the ships,

496
00:29:21,547 --> 00:29:23,782
they all refused,
'cause they told him

497
00:29:23,782 --> 00:29:26,418
that water belonged
outside the hull, not inside.

498
00:29:26,418 --> 00:29:29,388
So he had to go find other
investors to get the money

499
00:29:29,388 --> 00:29:31,890
to buy his own ship,
and he bought a ship

500
00:29:31,890 --> 00:29:33,559
by the name of the "Favorite."

501
00:29:36,528 --> 00:29:40,532
(narrator)
New England became the
refrigerator for the world

502
00:29:40,532 --> 00:29:43,202
with ice shipments
to the Caribbean,

503
00:29:43,202 --> 00:29:46,372
the coast of South America
and Europe.

504
00:29:46,372 --> 00:29:48,974
Tudor even reached
India and China.

505
00:29:48,974 --> 00:29:51,744
Watching the ice cutters
working Walden Pond,

506
00:29:51,744 --> 00:29:55,347
Henry Thoreau marveled that
water from his bathing beach

507
00:29:55,347 --> 00:29:57,750
was traveling
halfway around the globe

508
00:29:57,750 --> 00:30:02,154
to end up in the cup
of an East Indian philosopher.

509
00:30:02,154 --> 00:30:06,659
Tudor, who soon became known
as the "Ice King,"

510
00:30:06,659 --> 00:30:11,163
began using horses and huge
teams of workers to harvest

511
00:30:11,163 --> 00:30:15,634
larger and larger lakes
as the demand for ice grew.

512
00:30:15,634 --> 00:30:21,440
During the latter half of the
19th century, the ice industry

513
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,177
eventually employed
tens of thousands of people.

514
00:30:30,082 --> 00:30:33,485
(Dennis Picard)
Tudor became the largest
distributor of ice,

515
00:30:33,519 --> 00:30:36,889
and he became one of the first
American millionaires.

516
00:30:36,889 --> 00:30:40,292
And we're talking about
one of his ships

517
00:30:40,292 --> 00:30:44,029
going to the Caribbean
giving him a profit of $6,000!

518
00:30:44,029 --> 00:30:47,232
Now, this is in a time period
when people were earning

519
00:30:47,232 --> 00:30:49,401
$200 to $300 a year,
the average family.

520
00:30:49,401 --> 00:30:52,204
So someone earning thousands of
dollars was just inconceivable,

521
00:30:52,204 --> 00:30:54,139
and that would be losing 20%

522
00:30:54,139 --> 00:30:56,308
of your ice when it got there.

523
00:30:56,308 --> 00:30:59,144
There was still
huge amounts of profit.

524
00:31:02,544 --> 00:31:04,380
(narrator)
Tudor's success was based

525
00:31:04,380 --> 00:31:06,982
on an extraordinary
physical property of ice.

526
00:31:06,982 --> 00:31:11,754
It takes the same amount of heat
to melt a block of ice

527
00:31:11,754 --> 00:31:15,758
as it does to heat an equivalent
quantity of water

528
00:31:15,758 --> 00:31:17,593
to around 80 degrees Celsius.

529
00:31:17,593 --> 00:31:22,297
This meant that ice took
a long time to melt,

530
00:31:22,297 --> 00:31:25,234
even when shipped
to hotter climates.

531
00:31:31,340 --> 00:31:34,777
What started out as
a small family enterprise

532
00:31:34,777 --> 00:31:36,879
turned into a global business.

533
00:31:36,879 --> 00:31:39,014
Frederic Tudor had
industrialized cold

534
00:31:39,014 --> 00:31:41,150
in the same way

535
00:31:41,150 --> 00:31:44,553
the great pioneers of steam
had harnessed heat.

536
00:31:44,553 --> 00:31:47,322
[hissing]

537
00:31:47,322 --> 00:31:51,527
By the 1830s, the Industrial
Revolution was in full swing.

538
00:31:51,527 --> 00:31:56,231
Yet ironically, it was not until
a small group of scientists

539
00:31:56,231 --> 00:31:58,333
worked out
the underlying principles

540
00:31:58,333 --> 00:32:01,737
of how steam engines
convert heat into motion

541
00:32:01,737 --> 00:32:06,809
that the next step in the
conquest of cold could be made.

542
00:32:06,809 --> 00:32:09,778
Only after solving
this riddle of heat engines

543
00:32:09,778 --> 00:32:12,347
could the first
cold engines be made

544
00:32:12,347 --> 00:32:15,984
to produce
artificial refrigeration.

545
00:32:18,053 --> 00:32:20,489
How much useful work

546
00:32:20,489 --> 00:32:25,060
can you get out of
a given amount of heat?

547
00:32:25,060 --> 00:32:28,797
By the early 1800s,
that had become

548
00:32:28,797 --> 00:32:33,035
the single most important
economic problem in Europe.

549
00:32:35,604 --> 00:32:40,576
To make a profit was
to convert heat into motion--

550
00:32:40,576 --> 00:32:42,544
efficiently--
without wasting heat

551
00:32:42,544 --> 00:32:46,582
and getting the maximum
amount of mechanical effect.

552
00:32:46,582 --> 00:32:51,053
[creaking of gears]

553
00:32:53,022 --> 00:32:57,259
(narrator)
The first person to really
engage with this problem

554
00:32:57,259 --> 00:33:00,662
was a young French artillery
engineer, Sadi Carnot.

555
00:33:00,696 --> 00:33:04,700
He thought that improving
the efficiency of steam engines

556
00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:06,969
might help France's
flagging economy

557
00:33:06,969 --> 00:33:09,605
after defeat at Waterloo
in 1815.

558
00:33:09,605 --> 00:33:12,608
Working at the Conservatoire
des Arts et Métiers,

559
00:33:12,608 --> 00:33:15,677
he began to analyze
how a steam engine

560
00:33:15,677 --> 00:33:18,614
was able to turn heat
into mechanical work.

561
00:33:18,614 --> 00:33:22,851
In steam engines,
it looks as though

562
00:33:22,851 --> 00:33:26,488
heat is flowing
around the engine,

563
00:33:26,488 --> 00:33:30,626
and as it flows, the engine
does mechanical work.

564
00:33:36,663 --> 00:33:39,099
The implication there is

565
00:33:39,099 --> 00:33:43,337
that heat is neither
consumed nor destroyed.

566
00:33:43,337 --> 00:33:47,741
You simply circulate it around,
and it does work.

567
00:33:47,741 --> 00:33:50,711
(narrator)
Carnot likened this flow of heat

568
00:33:50,711 --> 00:33:54,081
to the flow of water
over a waterwheel.

569
00:33:54,081 --> 00:33:57,885
He saw that the amount of
mechanical work produced

570
00:33:57,885 --> 00:34:00,888
depended on how far
the water fell.

571
00:34:04,358 --> 00:34:08,795
His novel idea was that steam
engines worked in a similar way,

572
00:34:08,795 --> 00:34:11,765
except this fall was
a fall in temperature

573
00:34:11,765 --> 00:34:15,502
from the hottest to the coldest
part of the engine.

574
00:34:15,502 --> 00:34:18,105
The greater
the temperature difference,

575
00:34:18,105 --> 00:34:20,807
the more work was produced.

576
00:34:20,807 --> 00:34:23,443
Carnot distilled
these profound ideas

577
00:34:23,443 --> 00:34:27,181
into an accessible book
for general readers,

578
00:34:27,181 --> 00:34:30,717
which meant it was
largely ignored by scientists

579
00:34:30,717 --> 00:34:33,754
instead of being heralded
as a classic.

580
00:34:33,754 --> 00:34:35,689
Well, this is the book.

581
00:34:35,689 --> 00:34:37,457
It's Carnot's
only publication.

582
00:34:37,457 --> 00:34:40,961
"Reflections on the Motive Power
of Fire" of 1824,

583
00:34:40,961 --> 00:34:43,931
a small book, 118 pages only,

584
00:34:43,931 --> 00:34:45,966
published just 600 copies,

585
00:34:45,966 --> 00:34:49,870
and in his own lifetime,
it's virtually unknown.

586
00:34:49,870 --> 00:34:52,339
Twenty years
after the publication,

587
00:34:52,339 --> 00:34:54,775
William Thompson,
the Scottish physicist,

588
00:34:54,775 --> 00:34:58,178
is absolutely intent
on finding a copy.

589
00:34:58,178 --> 00:35:01,548
He's here in Paris,
and the accounts we have suggest

590
00:35:01,548 --> 00:35:04,284
that he spends
a great deal of time

591
00:35:04,284 --> 00:35:07,554
visiting bookshops,
visiting the bouquinistes

592
00:35:07,554 --> 00:35:09,857
on the banks of the Seine

593
00:35:09,857 --> 00:35:12,192
looking, always asking
for the book,

594
00:35:12,192 --> 00:35:16,463
and the booksellers tell him
they've never even heard of it.

595
00:35:24,101 --> 00:35:27,672
(narrator)
William Thompson, who would
later become Lord Kelvin,

596
00:35:27,672 --> 00:35:30,908
a giant in this new field
of thermodynamics,

597
00:35:30,908 --> 00:35:35,279
was impressed by Carnot's idea
that the movement of heat

598
00:35:35,279 --> 00:35:37,615
produced useful work
in the machine.

599
00:35:37,615 --> 00:35:40,184
But when he returned home,

600
00:35:40,184 --> 00:35:43,254
he heard about
an alternative theory

601
00:35:43,254 --> 00:35:46,891
from a Manchester brewer
called James Joule.

602
00:35:46,891 --> 00:35:50,962
Joule had this notion
that Carnot was wrong,

603
00:35:50,962 --> 00:35:55,533
that heat wasn't producing work
just by its movement.

604
00:35:55,533 --> 00:35:57,902
Heat was actually turning
into mechanical work,

605
00:35:57,902 --> 00:36:01,639
which is a very strange idea
when you think about it.

606
00:36:01,639 --> 00:36:04,408
We're all now used to
thinking about energy

607
00:36:04,408 --> 00:36:07,111
and how it can take
all different forms,

608
00:36:07,111 --> 00:36:09,614
but it was
a revolutionary idea

609
00:36:09,614 --> 00:36:12,550
that heat and something
like mechanical energy

610
00:36:12,550 --> 00:36:15,920
were, at bottom,
the same kind of thing.

611
00:36:18,322 --> 00:36:21,526
(narrator)
The experiment
that convinced Joule of this

612
00:36:21,526 --> 00:36:25,196
was set up in the cellar
of his brewery.

613
00:36:25,196 --> 00:36:27,632
It converted
mechanical movement into heat,

614
00:36:27,632 --> 00:36:30,468
almost like a steam engine
in reverse.

615
00:36:34,539 --> 00:36:36,407
He used falling weights

616
00:36:36,407 --> 00:36:40,278
to drive paddles
around the drum of water.

617
00:36:40,278 --> 00:36:42,647
The friction from this process

618
00:36:42,647 --> 00:36:45,550
generated
a minute amount of heat.

619
00:36:47,485 --> 00:36:50,221
Only brewers had
thermometers accurate enough

620
00:36:50,221 --> 00:36:52,990
to register
this tiny temperature increase

621
00:36:52,990 --> 00:36:56,694
caused by a measured amount
of mechanical work.

622
00:36:56,694 --> 00:37:02,266
Joules' work mattered
because it was the first time

623
00:37:02,266 --> 00:37:05,336
that anyone had
convincingly measured

624
00:37:05,336 --> 00:37:09,674
the exchange rate
between movement and heat.

625
00:37:09,674 --> 00:37:14,679
He proved the existence
of something

626
00:37:14,679 --> 00:37:19,717
that converts
between heat and motion.

627
00:37:19,717 --> 00:37:22,920
That something was going
to be called "energy,"

628
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:27,425
and it's for that reason
that the basic unit of energy

629
00:37:27,425 --> 00:37:30,628
in the new International
System of Units

630
00:37:30,628 --> 00:37:32,930
is named after him,
"The Joule".

631
00:37:32,930 --> 00:37:37,068
(narrator)
Joule and Carnot's ideas
were combined by Thomson

632
00:37:37,068 --> 00:37:40,271
to produce
what would later be known

633
00:37:40,271 --> 00:37:42,607
as "the laws of thermodynamics."

634
00:37:46,407 --> 00:37:50,010
The first law,
from Joule's work, states

635
00:37:50,010 --> 00:37:55,282
that, "Energy can be converted
from one form to another,

636
00:37:55,282 --> 00:37:58,919
but can never be
created or destroyed."

637
00:37:58,919 --> 00:38:02,623
The 2nd law, from Carnot's
theory, states that,

638
00:38:02,623 --> 00:38:07,261
"Heat flows in one direction
only, from hot to cold."

639
00:38:19,273 --> 00:38:22,576
In the 2nd half
of the 19th century,

640
00:38:22,576 --> 00:38:26,347
this new understanding paved
the way for steam power

641
00:38:26,347 --> 00:38:30,217
to artificially produce ice.

642
00:38:30,217 --> 00:38:32,353
Ice-making machines
like this one

643
00:38:32,353 --> 00:38:35,756
were based on principles
discovered by Michael Faraday,

644
00:38:35,756 --> 00:38:40,394
who showed when ammonia changes
from a liquid to a gas,

645
00:38:40,394 --> 00:38:42,930
it absorbs heat
from its surroundings.

646
00:38:42,930 --> 00:38:47,634
It's part of what is now known
as a "refrigeration cycle."

647
00:38:50,270 --> 00:38:53,273
In the first stage
of this cycle,

648
00:38:53,273 --> 00:38:57,144
gigantic pistons compress
ammonia gas into a hot liquid.

649
00:38:59,146 --> 00:39:03,484
The hot liquefied ammonia is
pumped into condenser coils

650
00:39:03,484 --> 00:39:05,586
where it's cooled...

651
00:39:05,586 --> 00:39:09,857
and fed into pipes
beneath giant water tanks.

652
00:39:14,561 --> 00:39:17,164
Then the pressure is released

653
00:39:17,164 --> 00:39:19,767
and the liquid ammonia
evaporates,

654
00:39:19,767 --> 00:39:22,903
absorbing heat
from the surrounding water.

655
00:39:22,903 --> 00:39:28,742
Gradually, the tanks of water
become blocks of ice.

656
00:39:32,980 --> 00:39:36,183
By the 1880's,
many towns across America

657
00:39:36,183 --> 00:39:38,952
had ice plants like this one,

658
00:39:38,952 --> 00:39:43,123
which could produce
150 tons of ice a day.

659
00:39:43,123 --> 00:39:46,393
For the first time,
artificially produced ice

660
00:39:46,393 --> 00:39:49,630
was threatening the natural
ice trade

661
00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:51,498
created by Frederic Tudor.

662
00:39:51,498 --> 00:39:57,338
America's appetite for ice was
insatiable.

663
00:39:57,338 --> 00:39:59,273
Slaughterhouses, breweries,

664
00:39:59,273 --> 00:40:02,543
and food warehouses
all needed ice.

665
00:40:02,543 --> 00:40:05,846
Animals were disassembled
on production lines in Chicago,

666
00:40:05,846 --> 00:40:09,149
and the meat was loaded
into ice-cooled boxcars

667
00:40:09,149 --> 00:40:11,218
to be shipped by railroad.

668
00:40:11,218 --> 00:40:13,520
(man)
Livestock on its way

669
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,056
to the great meat-packing
centers of the nation,

670
00:40:16,056 --> 00:40:17,358
to markets everywhere.

671
00:40:17,358 --> 00:40:19,126
Food of every sort

672
00:40:19,126 --> 00:40:21,495
safely and quickly delivered
in refrigerator cars.

673
00:40:26,765 --> 00:40:31,737
(narrator)
As fruit and vegetables became
available out of season,

674
00:40:31,737 --> 00:40:34,406
urban diets improved,
making city dwellers

675
00:40:34,406 --> 00:40:37,610
the best-fed people
in the world.

676
00:40:37,610 --> 00:40:41,614
And to keep everything
fresh at home,

677
00:40:41,614 --> 00:40:44,550
the iceman made
his weekly delivery

678
00:40:44,550 --> 00:40:46,552
to recharge the refrigerator.

679
00:40:46,552 --> 00:40:50,189
(Tom Schachtman)
Refrigeration makes a tremendous
difference in people's lives.

680
00:40:50,189 --> 00:40:52,324
First of all,
in the diet,

681
00:40:52,324 --> 00:40:54,793
what is possible
for them to eat.

682
00:40:54,793 --> 00:40:56,996
They can go to the store
once a week.

683
00:40:56,996 --> 00:40:58,731
They don't have
to go every day.

684
00:40:58,731 --> 00:41:00,432
They can obtain
at that store

685
00:41:00,432 --> 00:41:02,635
foods that are from almost
anywhere in the world

686
00:41:02,635 --> 00:41:04,403
that have been transported
and kept cool,

687
00:41:04,403 --> 00:41:06,872
and then they can keep them
in their own home.

688
00:41:06,872 --> 00:41:09,875
(narrator)
Eventually
the iceman disappeared

689
00:41:09,875 --> 00:41:14,747
as more and more households
bought electric refrigerators.

690
00:41:14,747 --> 00:41:17,683
These used
the same basic principles

691
00:41:17,683 --> 00:41:20,119
as the old ice-making machines.

692
00:41:20,119 --> 00:41:22,955
Liquid ammonia circulating
in pipes evaporates,

693
00:41:22,955 --> 00:41:26,825
draining the heat
away from the food inside.

694
00:41:26,825 --> 00:41:29,194
Compressed by an electric pump,

695
00:41:29,194 --> 00:41:33,065
the gas is condensed
back into liquid ammonia,

696
00:41:33,065 --> 00:41:35,401
and the cycle begins again.

697
00:41:35,434 --> 00:41:37,503
The electric power companies
loved refrigerators

698
00:41:37,503 --> 00:41:40,306
because they ran
all day and all night.

699
00:41:40,306 --> 00:41:44,043
They may not have used
that much power for each hour,

700
00:41:44,043 --> 00:41:46,145
but they continued
to use that.

701
00:41:46,145 --> 00:41:49,715
So one of the ways that they
sold rural electrification

702
00:41:49,715 --> 00:41:52,585
was the possibility of having
your own refrigerator.

703
00:41:52,585 --> 00:41:54,553
(narrator)
In the early days,

704
00:41:54,553 --> 00:41:57,990
the freezer was used
to freeze water, nothing else.

705
00:41:57,990 --> 00:41:59,959
Freezing was seen as having

706
00:41:59,959 --> 00:42:02,194
the same damaging effects
as frost.

707
00:42:02,194 --> 00:42:04,630
[wind howls]

708
00:42:09,232 --> 00:42:13,336
The man who would change
this idea forever

709
00:42:13,336 --> 00:42:17,540
was a scientist and explorer
named Clarence Birdseye.

710
00:42:17,540 --> 00:42:20,777
In 1912, Birdseye set off

711
00:42:20,777 --> 00:42:23,546
on an expedition to Labrador,

712
00:42:23,546 --> 00:42:28,451
and the temperature dropped
to 40 degrees below freezing.

713
00:42:36,192 --> 00:42:38,161
The Inuit had taught Birdseye

714
00:42:38,194 --> 00:42:40,096
how to ice fish

715
00:42:40,096 --> 00:42:44,100
by cutting a hole in the ice
several feet thick.

716
00:42:44,100 --> 00:42:45,802
When he caught a fish,

717
00:42:45,802 --> 00:42:49,439
he found it froze almost
as soon as it hit the air.

718
00:42:49,439 --> 00:42:52,876
This process seemed to preserve
the fish in a unique way.

719
00:42:56,279 --> 00:42:58,882
(Tom Schachtman)
When you went to cook this fish,

720
00:42:58,882 --> 00:43:01,017
it tasted just as good
as if fresh,

721
00:43:01,017 --> 00:43:02,719
and he couldn't
figure that out,

722
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:04,587
because when he
froze fish at home,

723
00:43:04,587 --> 00:43:06,356
they would taste terrible.

724
00:43:06,356 --> 00:43:08,324
So when he got back home,

725
00:43:08,324 --> 00:43:11,628
he finally tried to figure out
what was the difference

726
00:43:11,628 --> 00:43:14,364
between the quick freezing
and the usual freezing.

727
00:43:17,667 --> 00:43:19,636
(narrator)
Under closer examination,

728
00:43:19,636 --> 00:43:24,507
he could see what was happening
to the fish cells.

729
00:43:24,507 --> 00:43:27,911
With slow freezing,
large ice crystals formed,

730
00:43:27,911 --> 00:43:30,814
which distorted
and ruptured the cells.

731
00:43:30,814 --> 00:43:33,183
When thawed,
the tissue collapsed

732
00:43:33,183 --> 00:43:36,986
and all the nutrients
and flavor washed away--

733
00:43:36,986 --> 00:43:39,989
the so-called
"mushy strawberry" syndrome.

734
00:43:40,023 --> 00:43:41,891
But with fast freezing,

735
00:43:41,891 --> 00:43:46,096
only tiny ice crystals were
formed inside the cells,

736
00:43:46,096 --> 00:43:48,431
and these caused little damage.

737
00:43:48,431 --> 00:43:52,368
It was all down to the speed
of the freezing process.

738
00:43:52,368 --> 00:43:55,905
A simple concept,
but it took Clarence Birdseye

739
00:43:55,905 --> 00:43:58,108
another 10 years to perfect

740
00:43:58,108 --> 00:44:00,810
a commercial
fast-freezing technique that

741
00:44:00,810 --> 00:44:04,748
would mimic the natural process
he'd experienced in Labrador.

742
00:44:07,848 --> 00:44:12,352
In 1924, he opened
a flash freezing plant

743
00:44:12,352 --> 00:44:14,321
in Gloucester, Massachusetts

744
00:44:14,321 --> 00:44:19,593
that froze freshly landed fish
at minus 45 degrees.

745
00:44:21,428 --> 00:44:25,665
He then extended that to all
sorts of other kinds of meats

746
00:44:25,665 --> 00:44:28,535
and produce and vegetables
and almost single-handedly

747
00:44:28,535 --> 00:44:30,337
invented
the frozen food industry.

748
00:44:30,337 --> 00:44:32,038
(narrator)
Refrigerators and freezers

749
00:44:32,038 --> 00:44:35,141
would eventually become
icons of modern living,

750
00:44:35,141 --> 00:44:38,678
but there was a less visible
cold transformation

751
00:44:38,678 --> 00:44:40,847
happening at the same time.

752
00:44:40,847 --> 00:44:45,352
This would also have
a huge impact on urban life--

753
00:44:45,352 --> 00:44:48,088
the cooling of the air itself.

754
00:44:48,088 --> 00:44:51,291
Three centuries had passed
since Cornelius Drebbel

755
00:44:51,291 --> 00:44:54,127
had shaken King James
in Westminster.

756
00:44:54,127 --> 00:44:57,831
Now at the dawn
of the 20th century,

757
00:44:57,831 --> 00:45:01,067
air cooling was about
to shake the world.

758
00:45:01,067 --> 00:45:04,638
Tell me, what is the low down
on this air-conditioning thing?

759
00:45:04,638 --> 00:45:07,073
Now you've started something
by asking me that.

760
00:45:11,011 --> 00:45:14,648
(narrator)
Air-conditioning was about
to transform modern life,

761
00:45:14,648 --> 00:45:18,251
and the person largely
responsible was Willis Carrier,

762
00:45:18,251 --> 00:45:22,856
who started off working
for a company that made fans.

763
00:45:26,259 --> 00:45:32,999
(Marsha Ackermann)
Carrier is sent to Brooklyn
for a very special job in 1902.

764
00:45:32,999 --> 00:45:36,369
The company that publishes
the magazine "Judge,"

765
00:45:36,369 --> 00:45:40,740
one of the most popular
full-color magazines in America

766
00:45:40,740 --> 00:45:45,045
at this particular time,
is having a huge problem.

767
00:45:45,045 --> 00:45:49,482
It's July in Brooklyn
and the ink which they use

768
00:45:49,482 --> 00:45:53,086
on their beautiful covers
is sliding off the pages.

769
00:45:53,086 --> 00:45:57,123
It will not stick because
the humidity is too high.

770
00:45:59,326 --> 00:46:02,495
Carrier, using some principles
that he's been developing

771
00:46:02,495 --> 00:46:07,300
as a young new employee of
this fan company, finds a way

772
00:46:07,300 --> 00:46:11,638
to get out the July 1902
run of the "Judge" magazine,

773
00:46:11,638 --> 00:46:13,974
and from there he begins

774
00:46:13,974 --> 00:46:16,810
to eventually build his
air-conditioning empire.

775
00:46:16,810 --> 00:46:20,247
(narrator)
It's based
on a simple principle.

776
00:46:20,247 --> 00:46:23,717
(man)
Control of humidity through
control of temperature--

777
00:46:23,717 --> 00:46:26,186
that was Willis Carrier's idea.

778
00:46:26,186 --> 00:46:27,554
(narrator)
He used refrigeration

779
00:46:27,554 --> 00:46:31,091
to cool the water vapor
in the humid air.

780
00:46:31,091 --> 00:46:33,093
The vapor condensed
into droplets,

781
00:46:33,093 --> 00:46:35,495
leaving the air dry and cool.

782
00:46:39,295 --> 00:46:42,832
The demand for air-conditioning
gradually grew.

783
00:46:42,832 --> 00:46:46,336
In the 1920's, movie houses were

784
00:46:46,336 --> 00:46:50,373
among the first
to promote the benefits.

785
00:46:50,373 --> 00:46:53,776
People would flock there
in summer to escape the heat.

786
00:46:53,776 --> 00:46:57,213
(Marsha Ackermann)
The movies are wildly popular,
and the air-conditioning

787
00:46:57,213 --> 00:46:59,182
certainly helps
to attract an audience,

788
00:46:59,182 --> 00:47:02,585
especially if they happen
to be walking down the street

789
00:47:02,585 --> 00:47:06,723
on a horribly hot day and they
duck into this movie theater

790
00:47:06,723 --> 00:47:08,391
and have this wonderful
experience.

791
00:47:11,828 --> 00:47:14,664
(narrator)
Air-conditioning became
increasingly common

792
00:47:14,664 --> 00:47:16,532
in the workplace too,

793
00:47:16,532 --> 00:47:20,803
particularly in the South where
textile and tobacco factories

794
00:47:20,837 --> 00:47:23,139
were almost unbearable
without cooling.

795
00:47:23,139 --> 00:47:26,776
(man)
When employees breath good air
and feel comfortable,

796
00:47:26,776 --> 00:47:29,979
they work faster
and do a better job.

797
00:47:29,979 --> 00:47:31,914
I think
some people think

798
00:47:31,914 --> 00:47:33,683
these were nice
compassionate employers

799
00:47:33,683 --> 00:47:35,818
who were cooling down the
workplace for the workers,

800
00:47:35,818 --> 00:47:38,321
but of course, nothing could be
further from the truth.

801
00:47:38,321 --> 00:47:40,823
That was
an inadvertent by-product,

802
00:47:40,823 --> 00:47:44,827
but actually this was
a quality control device

803
00:47:44,827 --> 00:47:49,298
to control the breaking
of fibers in cotton mills

804
00:47:49,298 --> 00:47:51,801
to get consistent
quality control

805
00:47:51,801 --> 00:47:53,870
in these various industries

806
00:47:53,870 --> 00:47:57,340
to control the dust
that had bedeviled

807
00:47:57,340 --> 00:48:00,343
tobacco stemming room workers
for decades.

808
00:48:00,343 --> 00:48:04,113
I mean, I think the workers
obviously went home

809
00:48:04,113 --> 00:48:07,550
and to their unair-conditioned
shacks in most cases

810
00:48:07,550 --> 00:48:10,920
and talked about
how nice and cool

811
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,423
it was working
during the day.

812
00:48:13,423 --> 00:48:16,326
It's silly to suffer
from the heat

813
00:48:16,326 --> 00:48:20,530
when you can afford the modest
cost of air-conditioning.

814
00:48:20,530 --> 00:48:24,400
(narrator)
By the 1950's, people were
air-conditioning their homes

815
00:48:24,434 --> 00:48:28,404
with stand-alone window units
that could be easily installed.

816
00:48:28,404 --> 00:48:30,573
This wasn't just an appliance;

817
00:48:30,573 --> 00:48:34,110
it offered
a new, cool way of life.

818
00:48:34,110 --> 00:48:36,512
[big band plays swing]

819
00:48:43,720 --> 00:48:47,590
(Raymond Arsenault)
Walking down a typical
Southern street

820
00:48:47,590 --> 00:48:49,993
prior to the air-conditioning
revolution,

821
00:48:49,993 --> 00:48:53,396
you would have seen families,
individuals, outside.

822
00:48:53,396 --> 00:48:55,264
They would have been
on their porches,

823
00:48:55,264 --> 00:48:56,966
on each other's porches.

824
00:48:56,966 --> 00:48:59,736
There was a visiting tradition,
a real sense of community.

825
00:48:59,736 --> 00:49:02,972
[electric compressor
fan motors start; fans whirr]

826
00:49:02,972 --> 00:49:05,308
Well, I think all that changes
with air-conditioning.

827
00:49:05,308 --> 00:49:08,511
You walk down that same street
and basically what you'll hear

828
00:49:08,511 --> 00:49:11,447
are not the voices of people
talking on the porch;

829
00:49:11,447 --> 00:49:13,516
you'll hear the whirr
of the compressors.

830
00:49:17,387 --> 00:49:19,155
Guess what we've got!

831
00:49:19,155 --> 00:49:20,890
An RCA room air conditioner.

832
00:49:20,890 --> 00:49:25,528
I'm a woman, and I know how much
pure air means to mother

833
00:49:25,528 --> 00:49:29,599
in keeping our rooms clean
and free from dust and dirt.

834
00:49:37,974 --> 00:49:41,978
(narrator)
Control of the cold has
transformed city life.

835
00:49:41,978 --> 00:49:44,280
Refrigeration helped cities
expand outwards

836
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,916
by enabling large numbers
of people

837
00:49:46,916 --> 00:49:51,454
to live at great distances
from their source of food.

838
00:49:56,591 --> 00:50:00,328
Air-conditioning enabled cities
to expand upwards.

839
00:50:00,328 --> 00:50:05,967
Beyond 20 stories, high winds
make open windows impractical,

840
00:50:05,967 --> 00:50:08,469
but with air-conditioning,

841
00:50:08,469 --> 00:50:11,039
100-story skyscrapers
were possible.

842
00:50:16,210 --> 00:50:18,513
(Simon Schaffer)
Technologies emerged,

843
00:50:18,513 --> 00:50:20,882
which not only worked

844
00:50:20,882 --> 00:50:26,187
to insulate human society
against the evils of cold,

845
00:50:26,187 --> 00:50:29,090
but turned cold
into a productive,

846
00:50:29,090 --> 00:50:31,960
manageable,
effective resource.

847
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:35,229
On the one hand,
the steam engine;

848
00:50:35,229 --> 00:50:37,332
on the other,
the refrigerator--

849
00:50:37,332 --> 00:50:41,402
those 2 great symbols
of 19th-century world,

850
00:50:41,402 --> 00:50:43,905
which completely
changed the society

851
00:50:43,905 --> 00:50:46,374
and economy of the planet.

852
00:50:46,407 --> 00:50:49,377
All that is
part of, I think,

853
00:50:49,377 --> 00:50:52,780
what we could call
bringing cold to market.

854
00:50:52,780 --> 00:50:56,618
Turning it from an evil agent
that you feared

855
00:50:56,618 --> 00:51:00,922
into a force of nature
from which you could profit.

856
00:51:03,822 --> 00:51:07,626
(narrator)
The explosive growth
of the modern world

857
00:51:07,626 --> 00:51:09,761
over the last two centuries

858
00:51:09,761 --> 00:51:12,697
owes much
to the conquest of cold,

859
00:51:12,731 --> 00:51:15,300
but this was only the beginning

860
00:51:15,300 --> 00:51:18,270
of the journey
down the temperature scale.

861
00:51:18,270 --> 00:51:21,339
Going lower
would be even harder,

862
00:51:21,339 --> 00:51:23,508
but would produce
greater wonders

863
00:51:23,508 --> 00:51:26,578
that promise extraordinary
innovations for the future.

864
00:51:26,578 --> 00:51:31,316
With rival scientists racing
toward the final frontier,

865
00:51:31,316 --> 00:51:36,121
the pace quickens
and the molecular dance slows

866
00:51:36,121 --> 00:51:41,493
as they approach the Holy Grail
of cold--"Absolute Zero."

867
00:51:42,100 --> 00:51:54,846
Text : WTC-SWE