Tom Shachtman

Chronicles the tribulations and legendary excesses of the Reynolds tobacco family, from patriarch R.J. Reynolds, to his two playboy sons, Dick and Smith, down to Dick's children

Presents the history of low-temperature research and the quest for ever-lower notches on the thermometer. The conquest of cold opens with experiments in the 1600s that asked what heat and cold are and whether they are different aspects of the same phenomenon. Shows how the experiments that settled those questions helped stoke the Industrial Revolution. The race for absolute zero dramatizes the rivalry between Scottish researcher James Dewar and Dutch...