Einstein’s Fridge

Paul Sen first encountered thermodynamics while studying engineering at the University of Cambridge. He became a documentary filmmaker with a passion for communicating profound scientific ideas in an engaging and accessible way to a wide audience with landmark TV series such as Triumph of the Nerds and Atom. These brought a love of storytelling to the worlds of science and technology. Paul's award-winning TV company Furnace, where he is creative director, has made BBC science series such as Everything and Nothing, Order and Disorder, The Secrets of Quantum Physics, and ninety-minute films such as Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives and Oak Tree: Nature's Greatest Survivor. This won the prestigious Royal Television Society Award for best science and natural history program and the Grierson Award for best science documentary in 2016. Einstein's Fridge is born out of Paul's conviction that the history of science is the history that matters.

'An accessible and crystal-clear portrait of this discipline's breadth, largely told through its history' PHIL BALL, PHYSICS WORLD

Einstein's Fridge tells the story of how scientists uncovered the least known and yet most consequential of all the sciences, and learned to harness the power of heat and ice.

The laws of thermodynamics govern everything from the behaviour of atoms to that of living cells, from the engines that power our world to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how the lights come on, and ultimately how the universe will end. The people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences - they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists and mathematicians.

Their discoveries, set over two hundred years, kick-started the industrial revolution, changed the course of world wars and informed modern understanding of black holes. This book captures the thrill of discovery and the power of revolutionary science to change the world forever.

'An accessible and crystal-clear portrait of this discipline's breadth, largely told through its history' PHIL BALL, PHYSICS WORLD