A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe [Hardcover]

Gino Segre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2002

Of the three fundamental methods of measurement-time, length, and temperature-Gino Segrè is convinced that temperature is not only the most subtle but also the most revealing. In this engaging, insightful book, Segrè, a distinguished theoretical physicist, makes his lifelong fascination with temperature the organizing theme of a wide-ranging journey through science, history, and culture.

A graceful writer and a nimble synthesizer, Segrè explores how temperature (which we have only recently succeeded in measuring) is bound up with the very essence of both life and inert matter. Why is the internal temperature of most mammals fixed at 98.6 degrees, no matter what climate they inhabit? What do the hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor reveal about the history of our planet? Why has temperature proved to be so much more difficult to measure than distance and time? How does the quest to reach absolute zero relate to the problem of superconductivity in quantum physics? In answering these and hundreds of other temperature-sensitive questions, Segrè unfolds a narrative that is at once compelling, surprising, and brilliantly associative.

A wonderful synthesis of science, history, and imagination, A Matter of Degrees uses deep, detailed knowledge of particular fields to open up the big scientific questions of our time.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Length and mass are measurements we understand intuitively, but temperature is fleeting and elusive. Why is it so hard to measure compared with other fundamentals? Why do living things require such a narrow range of temperatures to go about their business? How cold is deep space, anyway? Physicist Gino Segre knows how to keep interest flowing along; even when he's explaining the intricacies of small-scale physics, he takes time to ground it in real life. His scope is wide--from the beginning (and ending) of the universe to the history of life on Earth, little falls outside his purview. Yet the book touches on so many subjects of immediate interest to 21st-century humans (high fevers, sports medicine, and the next scheduled Ice Age, to name a few) that it's compelling even to those who don't care about the Big Questions. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

Segre, a theoretical physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, begins this far-ranging survey of the history of science by explaining how living organisms maintain stable temperatures and showing how adaptations to hot or cold habitats influenced animal evolution. Subsequent chapters cover a wide range of topics such as the development of heat-measuring technologies; influences of temperature on earth's climate, including speculations on "snowball" and "slushball" earth scenarios and the greenhouse effect; survival mechanisms of thermophiles and psychrophiles (bacteria that tolerate extremely high and extremely low temperatures, respectively); and the role of neutrinos, tiny particles produced in the core of the sun, in explaining solar dynamics. Segre observes that the history of human civilization can be read as a story of the "ever-hotter fires humans made as they moved from hunter-gatherers to villagers to toolmakers," while the formation of the universe can be seen as a vast cooling, from one hundred billion degrees at one hundredth of a second after the big bang to the cooler temperatures at which neutrons and protons could bind together (one billion degrees) and some 300,000 years later hydrogen and helium atoms could form (3,000 degrees). While some of Segre's material will be a challenge to readers without knowledge of college-level physics, he brings humor and passion to his subject and excels in showing its relevance to both current policy and future research.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Viking / Penguin; 1st edition (June 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670031011
• ISBN-13: 978-0670031016
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars clear explanations of complex subjects, December 16, 2002

By 

D. Archibald "squibix" (Bedford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe (Hardcover)

This book is subtitled 'What temperature reveals about the past and future of our species, planet, and universe' and when I picked it up I imagined it was going to be about global warming and all that terrible stuff. Fortunately, while he does mention that dire subject, it's far from the only thing Mr Segrè has to offer. Instead his book is a consideration of the effect of temperature in all sorts of things, from the human body--warm-bloodedness and fever--to quantum mechanics. In between it takes in black smoker ecosystems, the birth and death of stars and the big bang. Segrè divides his efforts between explaining the science itself and giving us the history behind its original discoveries and does both rather well, showing a brisk pace and an engaging sense of humor the whole time.

Obviously, given the amount of material covered, some things are described in rather less detail than one might wish, and the transitions sometimes left me wondering if the author was going to come back and say more about a subject; but all that does is encourage the reader to pursue one bit or other further in other books, which is a reasonable thing for a general-audience book like this is. There were also sections--most notably the bits about extra dimensions, conditions at the time of the big bang, and multiple universes interacting like sheets (something like that..)--that lost me pretty completely. But Segrè is a good enough writer that instead of giving up I plowed ahead, and soon enough I was back on firm ground. And the end of the book, about the effects of very low temperatures on the behavior of molecules, was one of the clearest explanations of quantum mechanics I've ever read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Journey of Discovery from the Birth of Aspirin to Hydrothermal Vents, February 15, 2006

By 

James East (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe (Paperback)

An entertaining read about the discovery and history of temperature. Along with the usual suspects like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and others, you are also introduced to many other somewhat less heralded scientific figures that have made great contributions to science. Some of the more interesting sections in this fascinating book were, the origin and discovery of aspirin, the invention of the thermometer, what hydrothermal vents tell us, to temperature shift extinctions. Overall, a very quick read with lasting anecdotal impressions.

Why read this book?

To quote Steven Weinberg "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." This book opens both new insights into and of the world we live in.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For an egghead, he is a hoot!, July 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe (Hardcover)

This is a real contribution...not just to the field of temperature but to scientific literature. The facts are fast and furious but held together in a cohesive and compelling narrative. Also peppered with Segre's sense of humor and robust grasp of the bigger picture. As the Kirkus review put it best, to paraphrase, Segre is to temperature what Elvis is to rock and roll! Rock on ....