A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe
Gino Segrè
Language: English
Pages: 210
ISBN: B01FIX69SA
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In a wonderful synthesis of science, history, and imagination, Gino Segrè, an internationally renowned theoretical physicist, embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of how the fundamental scientific concept of temperature is bound up with the very essence of both life and matter.
- Why is the internal temperature of most mammals fixed near 98.6°?
- How do geologists use temperature to track the history of our planet?
- Why is the quest for absolute zero and its quantum mechanical significance the key to understanding superconductivity?
And what can we learn from neutrinos, the subatomic "messages from the sun" that may hold the key to understanding the birth-and death-of our solar system? In answering these and hundreds of other temperature-sensitive questions, Segrè presents an uncanny view of the world around us.
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Nonlinear Dynamics and Quantum Chaos: An Introduction (Graduate Texts in Physics)
Fundamentals of Mechanical Vibrations (2nd Edition)
temperature of, 188–90, 193–95 fate of, 200–203 hydrogen fusion in, 187–89, 196–99 neutrino emission of, 190–95 sunspots of, 184–86 surface temperature of, 184–85 sunspots, 111, 184–86 superconductivity, 229, 241–48 superfluidity, 229 supernovas, 200–201, 205–8, 214 Szilard, Leo, 262–65 telescope, 48, 49–50 thermodynamics: entropy and, 72–73 First Law of, 68, 71–72, 73, 75 molecular motion and, 73–74 Second Law of, 66, 71–72, 73, 76 Third Law of, 73 thermometer, 48–58 Celsius
seem to outweigh the benefits: every increase of a degree in temperature means approximately a 7 percent greater oxygen demand, more need for fluids, and more stress on the heart and other organs. Fever diminishes mental functioning and can produce delirium in even nonfatal episodes. It shocks the system, so much that mental patients were sometimes treated by having fevers induced. The 1927 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Julius Wagner-Jauregg for his observation of psychiatric improvement
through the upper layers of the ocean, but by a thousand feet down there isn’t enough light to sustain photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and organic material. Plant growth ceases at that point, but life continues, sustained by nutrients that have drifted slowly downward from the upper, life-rich layers. Food is cycled and recycled by organisms constituting a chain joining the top of the sea to the bottom. Some life, even varied forms
the clay had more than a hundred times the expected amount of iridium. Either the clay had taken a hundred times longer to form than he thought was possible, or something else had happened sixty-five million years ago, something that deposited lots of iridium on Earth at that time. This was more than just daily dust. The Alvarezes thought the cause might be an asteroid collision with the Earth while the clay layer was being formed. If the asteroid weighed enough, its iridium contribution could be
low-temperature world is inextricably linked to the quantum one. Superconductivity, superfluidity, Bose-Einstein condensation, and other puzzling behaviors near absolute zero can only be understood in light of the rules imposed on atoms by quantum mechanics. In turn, those lowest temperatures illuminate the quantum world. Scientific efforts to reach lower temperatures began well before the concept of absolute zero was formulated. In 1800 the quest was phrased as an effort to liquefy all known
