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Published Mar 2021
320 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
An entertaining, eye-opening account of the extraordinary team of innovators who discovered the laws of thermodynamics essential to understanding the world today - from refrigeration and jet engines to calorie counting and global warming - for fans of How We Got to Now and A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Einstein's Fridge tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy and entropy—is the least known and yet most consequential of all the sciences. It governs everything from the behavior of living cells to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how lights turn on, the limits of computing, and how the universe will end.
The brilliant people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences; they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists, and mathematicians. From French military engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot to Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, Alan Turing, and Stephen Hawking, author Paul Sen introduces us to all of the players who passed the baton of scientific progress through time and across nations. Incredibly driven and idealistic, these brave pioneers performed groundbreaking work often in the face of torment and tragedy. Their discoveries helped create the modern world and transformed every branch of science, from biology to cosmology.
Einstein's Fridge brings to life one of the most important scientific revolutions of all time and captures the thrill of discovery and the power of scientific progress to shape the course of history.
"Director Sen makes a convincing case for the importance of thermodynamics in his impressive debut...He accomplishes all of this with splendid prose, making ample use of analogies to explain complex scientific ideas. Sen's history of hot and cold is pop-science that hits the mark." - Publishers Weekly
"A fine account of thermodynamics...Sen knows his business and remains lucid throughout the narrative...A lesson in how to do popular science right." - Kirkus Reviews
"Sen performs an exquisite examination of an ostensibly simple distinction, the difference between hot and cold." - Booklist
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul Sen first encountered thermodynamics while studying engineering at Cambridge. After graduating, he began a career in television. Starting at the BBC, he made films on a diverse range of subjects, including dance culture, plane building, the internet revolution, and the social history of Britain. His 90-minute film, Oak Tree, Nature's Greatest Survivor won the prestigious Royal Television Society Award for best science and natural history program and the Grierson Award for Best Science Documentary. He is the author of Einstein's Fridge.
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