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

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Summary: Plenty of history and science in an intriguing survey
Review: A few degrees temperature difference can make or break species, change environments completely, and affects both life and inert matter. A Matter Of Degrees explores how temperatures operate both physiologically and on a global level. From thermal ocean vents to the measurement of temperature changes over eons, this blends plenty of history and science in an intriguing survey.

Rating:
Summary: Degrees of Excellence
Review: It is hard to say which is more compelling: A Matter of Degrees' strength as a book of science history or its strength as a work of literature. Segre writes with such elegance, clarity and charm that it is easy to forget that this is a work we read for self-improvement rather than self-indulgence.

In a step-by-logical-step fashion, Segre leads the reader first to appreciate the importance of temperature and its regulation in living things into an understanding of thermo dynamics generally. We see things from the standpoint of giants like Newton, Davey, Rumford, Carnot and Kelvin, through moderns like Einstein, Bohr, Heizenberg, et al.--all the way up to discoveries circa 2001. We also see how even the great ones have stumbled and struggled with their misapprehensions, and will doubtless continue to do so.

From the warmth of mammalian bodies to the warmth of the greehouse effect, from the shriek of the first steam engines to the flickering near-nothingness of the neutrino, Segre ties the first to the last to show how an understanding of temperature leads to an understanding of origin. And by that I do not mean the origin of life--I mean the origin of everything.

This book is for people who--
A) Did not take any science courses in college but wish they had;
B) Did take science courses in college but wish they hadn't;
C) Want to see how a master teacher teaches his area of mastery; or
D)Are even passingly curious about How It All Began and How It All Might End.

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Summary: A "segre" book...
Review: Outstandingly excellent, a distillatgion of the "segre family quality" in the sciences.

Rating:
Summary: A "segre" book...
Review: Outstandingly excellent, a distillatgion of the "segre family quality" in the sciences.

Rating:
Summary: a good philosophy/physics read...
Review: The author is a natural teacher who explains that this work is a reflection of his observation over time that phenomena seem to have common bases. That is, the experience of an individual may be seen to have a uniformity and/or homogenity that reflects the substrata of physical processes. Thus the sub-theme of the work is human connectedness.

I find this observation valid and comforting. Experience extends naturally from physical causes that manifest underlying order. Temperature is simply one dimension of uniformity that we can find evident everywhere we look in Nature.

This is such a nice counter-balance for the chaos that seems increasingly inescapable. The language is reader-friendly and I recommend this book to all readers.

Any reminder of just how natural humans really are can be very helpful. Routine concerns about something as mundane as the relatively stable temperature of one's own body keeps reminding us how deeply natural we really are.

Thanks to Gino Segre. I look forward to the next book.

Rating:
Summary: clear explanations of complex subjects
Review: 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.