Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-07-06

there is one spot in Washington
where the thermometer registers
IL an extreme OF cold that is hun
dreds Of degrees below any tenn
peratures that Peary encountered at the
north pole or Amundsen experienced at
the other end of the world. In fact, the
temperatures here recorded have never
been known to nature or science except
in two or three instances. They are reg
istered at the bureau of standards through
the juggling Of gases by scientists. They
are the result of scientific endeavor to
make the lowest possible temperature.
This is summer story of how Wash
ington scientists make the coolest things
ever recorded.
Experts of the governments bureau of
standards. those scientists who teach the
college presidents of the nation new
stunts, are in hot pursuit of the coolest
thing CONFERENCE.-The absolute zero. This
absolute zero is the north pole Of scien-
tifc research. There are scientists the
world around who are endeavoring to
penetrate to its forbidding temperatures,
a region some 400 degrees colder than
that encountered at the top of the world.
The absolute zero. however. is not to be
found by means Of Eskimo and dog sleds.
| The explorers of science do their ex-
ploring In the privacy of laboratories. and
their implements are test tubes and COM
pressed gases.
4 u
The absolute zero is a condition where
no heat exists. Compared with it a cake
of ice is farther removed than from a
red-hot furnace. Ice. In fact, contains a
goodly amount of heat To be exact 1t
Is 273 degrees centigrade or AGO degrees
of the Fahrenheit that We know warmer
than the absolute zero. No scientist has
as yet succeeded in making anything SO
cold that 1t was absolutely without heat.
Yet there are those who have penetrated
within four degrees Of the pole. which
is getting close and which causes others
to hope.
The absolute zero on the centigrade
scale is established as being minus 273.
This Is probably the point where heat
ceases to exist, although the theory has
never been proven by reaching II. the
figure is obtained by observing the action
of gas under ordinary temperatures. Gas
Is placed in thermometer just as mer-
curry is When Ii is warmed 1t expands
and the marker on the thermometer rises
When Ii Is cooled II contracts ana the
marker goes down.
Now. the scientists know that when gas
Is heated one degree IT EXPANDS l-2ISd
| It contracts an equal amount when 1t Is
| cooled one degree. So 1T is easily seen
| that II II were cooled 273 degrees II would
| be to the absolute zero. for 1t could no
longer contract That figure Is conse-
quently taken as the coolest possible, as
| the point where heat no longer exists.
| So. having established in theory this
north pole OF science, the men OF the
specks who do research stunts started out
right merrfly TO find Ii. Up In Siberia
| the thermometer sometimes falls as low
as 80 degrees centigrade below the freez-
| ing point. That Ia the coolest weather
/ the world knows, and those storms that
come from our own Medicine Hat are
! nothing to compare with II. But % de-
grees is long way from 273. and the lat
| tiers - the point aimed at. Methods must
] +. de sed for reatning X.
- - al dsf1 - ! 4