Temperature--it is all the rage these days! Some will glue themselves to a seat or a highway to express their fear and concern over temperature. It seems like most of my own life has been somehow concerned with temperature, from wondering whether the ponds would freeze up as a kid in Connecticut to skate on, to working a midnight shift fretting about the forecast high on day 5. So Gino Segrè's 2003 small volume entitled 'A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About Our Past and Future of Our Species, Planet and Universe' remains a very relevant, instructive and entertaining work. Apparently it appears on a list of Charlie Munger's (of Berkshire Hathaway fame) recommended reads and I can see why. It is a crucial concept to understand especially nowadays and as we go foward. It is not a difficult work per se but you must be willing to engage with a wide variety of scientific disciplines from biology, chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, climatology, oceanography, geology, astrophysics and engineering. That might be the only criticism as he tends to veer somewhat off topic at times but all of it remains fascinating and he usually ties these forays back to the main theme--the criticality of temperature to most of existence. Of the three fundamental methods of measurement--time, length and temperature, Segre sets out to demonstrate that temperature is perhaps the most revealing. He provides background science history on many of the key concepts related to the role and nature of temperature and it is a delight to read about how so many key ideas were born, refined, rejected or improved. Of course the section on climate, 'Reading the Earth' was of real interest to me. He provides a good overview of the science of global warming, some of the various theories and how we might deal with the reality (not well then, or now sadly). On page 115 he notes the then current (2002) global CO2 concentration at 360 ppm, today roughly 22 years on we are at 424.86 per the Keeling Curve (4/16/24). The other sections are also quite good and with his expertise in astrophysics perhaps the strongest discussions in that area. I found the discussion on the 'discovery' of absolute zero, superconductivity and efforts to liquify various elements quite compelling. I had never head of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist at the Leiden University who won a Nobel in physics (1913) for his efforts in this area.
There is an excellent section of references which has provided several candidates for my Want to Read List, but how to find the time?! Segre has a real respect for the many scientific personalities discussed and maintains a sense of wonder about how it all fits together that is infectious. As noted, his expertise is in astrophysics so I definitely would like to read some of his other works on folks like Enrico Fermi (2016), George Gamow and Max Delbruck (2011) and one on the discovery of the neutron (2007). I will give 4.5 stars rounded down due to being slightly dated at this point and for the tendency to wander.