"In a sweeping science adventure story, rich with historical characters, including Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, Tom Shachtman takes us on a journey in which the extraordinary secrets of cold are teased apart and mastered, bringing advances in civilization and comfort. Starting in the 1600s with an alchemist's attempt to air condition Westminster Abbey and the invention of thermometers and scales (where should zero be set?), the story unfolds as nineteenth-century merchants sell Walden Pond ice to tropical countries and competing scientists pursue absolute zero with as much fervor as the races toward the North and South Poles aroused."--BOOK JACKET.