A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe. - book review

Science News, August 17, 2002

GINO SEGRE

In this wide-ranging and engaging tour of the history of temperature measurements, Segre, a theoretical physicist, considers not only body temperature in animals and people, but also the role of heat in the Big Bang and in the climate that has enabled life to flourish on Earth. This leads him to wonder why our body temperature is fixed at 98.6[degrees]F, no matter what climate we inhabit, and why we (and birds, for that matter) sometimes suffer from fevers. He also considers absolute zero and superconductivity. These entertaining discussions and answers to various temperature-related questions are interspersed within Segre's larger story of how people have improved their ability to measure temperature within the past few hundred years, Viking, 2002, 300 p., b&w illus., hardcover, $24.95.