Temperature! Little defines the world more; few numbers do we have a closer relationship with. Twenty degrees is summer, forty is fever, at zero ice turns to water, and at one hundred water boils. Two degrees is a symbol of climate change. Thirty-seven degrees is the human being.
The universe, the planet, life itself – everything is temperature. Our own thermostat is set to 37°C, adapted to life in the tropics. From there, we ventured toward latitudes where we do not truly belong. We took control of temperature and conquered the world.
This book is an expedition through the history and science of temperature. With Svalbard as its frame of reference, Ellen Viste explores something we all feel in our bodies, yet which took the sharpest minds several centuries to fully understand.
What did a thermometer actually measure? Was heat a substance – and what, then, was cold? Above steam engines and electrically stimulated frog legs hovered the fear of new ice ages and of energy becoming unusable. One day everything will grow cold, but for now it is the planet’s fever we must bring under control.
From the Big Bang to buzzing atoms, from absolute zero to a burning ship – Temperature is a tale of contrasts, eccentric scientists, and the limits of human endurance.
Tales of the Wind succeeds in showing how something as ordinary as today’s weather forecast is built on scientific thinking with roots tracing back to the ancient Greeks.
Bergens Tidende, About Tales of the wind
