Grade Level: JrH-Adult Producer: BBC Closed Captioned: No

Running Time: 50 mins Country of Origin: Great Britain Study Guide: No

Copyright Date: 2011 Available in French: No

Once upon a time, actor and comedian Ben Miller was going to be a physicist. He embarked on a PhD in low temperature physics at Cambridge University’s world-renowned Cavendish Laboratory, but abandoned his white coat for the lure of the stage.
 

Recent debates about climate change have reignited Ben’s interest in physics. Ben realised that, despite his science background, he couldn’t entirely explain the fundamentals of temperature – and its relevance to our lives.
 

Ben returns to his origins as a scientist, embarking on a journey into the mysteries of temperature, heat, and energy. He witnesses engaging scientific demonstrations, and encounters scientists – from the quirky to the brilliant.
 

Ben also learns about the importance of scientific measurement – the need for accuracy and for results that can be shared and replicated. He visits Britain’s National Physical Laboratory – the institution tasked with formally defining one degree – and he goes further, into the atomic secrets of temperature, and its fundamental relationship with molecular energy.
 

Ben explores the extremes of the temperature range. From low temperature laboratories that can produce temperatures just millionths of a degree above absolute zero, to the JET Fusion laboratories where some of the highest temperatures on Earth have been produced.