Tales of Cooling

In the summer of 1620, a hustler named Cornelis Drebbel offered to amaze the English royal court by producing a roomful of winterlike cold. King James I took up the challenge and chose Westminster Abbey on a particularly warm day. We know Drebbel succeeded to the satisfaction of the king because the feat is mentioned in passing by Francis Bacon, philosopher of science and sometimes lord chancellor to James I. With this episode, Tom Shachtman begins the tale he calls Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold.