Towards Absolute Zero: Transcription
EXT. Funfare - day
Ossie is at a funfair near the beach of a seaside resort. He is hot - sweat dripping from his brow.
He walks past a ride - 'Towering Inferno' but gets hotter just thinking about it.
He hears a familiar ice-cream van tune and looks round to see another ride - 'Absolute Zero'. He smiles.
VOICE
Are you ready to get cold?
INT. Freezer ride - day
Ossie sits down on a roller coaster seat and is slightly startled when a harness clamps down on top of him.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Are you ready to get really cold?
Ossie is not sure this time but nods along.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Are you ready to get colder than most things in this universe have ever been before?
Ossie is not ready. He tries to move the harness and is panicked to find that it is locked down.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Alright then, here we go - on a trip towards Absolute Zero.
Ossie yells as the roller-coaster shoots off at great speed.
INT. Fridge - day
The roller-coaster makes its way through a huge fridge - past milk, lettuce, chicken drumsticks etc. Temperature gauges appear at the bottom of the screen 4C, 277.15 K
VOICE
4C, cold enough to stop your milk going sour.
Ossie is enjoying feeling cool - he thinks that maybe the ride is not so bad after all. His attention is grabbed by some cream cakes on a shelf.
VOICE
But not cold enough for us.
The roller coaster shoots of again. Ossie just misses the cake he was after.
They move into the freezer compartment, past fish fingers and ice-cubes. The gauges change to -5C, 268.15K.
VOICE (CONT'D)
-5C. Water has frozen but not everything freezes at this temperature. Some things never freeze at all.
A drawer opens in front of Ossie and a glass container moves out to sit above his legs. It is labelled - 'Helium' Ossie is a little startled by the container. He shudders with cold. The background changes to glaciers and snowy mountains.
EXT. Antarctica - day
The gauges show -89C, 184.15K
VOICE
-89C. You might be starting to feel a little chilly.
Ossie is physically shaking with cold. A drawer labelled 'cold weather gear' opens in front of him and out shoots a thin scarf.
VOICE (CONT'D)
That's because heat flows from hot things - you - to cold things - Antarctica.
Ossie looks at the scarf scathingly but still grabs it and wraps it round his neck.
VOICE (CONT'D)
There can't be anywhere much colder than this, right?
Ossie nods.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Wrong.
Ossie tries the harness again. It is still stuck down. The roller coaster shoots off.
EXT. SPACE - Night
The roller coaster moves through space towards a large gas cloud.
The gauges show -253.15C, 20K
VOICE
The beginnings of a new star. It comes in at -253C or 20 Kelvin. Zero Kelvin is Absolute Zero.
VOICE (CONT'D)
The roller-coaster moves through the cloud.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Temperature is really a measurement of how much things are moving and out here they aren't moving a lot.
Shot of Ossie. He is frozen rigid - his face in a shocked expression. Only his eyes are moving.
VOICE (CONT'D)
To go lower than this we are going to have to get experimental.
The roller-coaster turns and heads back in the direction of earth.
INT. lab - day
The roller-coaster moves towards a series of interlinked electrodes with a tunnel through the middle - labelled 'Stark Decelerator' and 'Made in Oxford'
It moves into the tunnel, slowing down as it makes its way along.
Still frozen rigid, Ozzie's eyes watch the helium in the glass container above his legs.
The temperature gauges fall.
VOICE
4 Kelvin
At -269.15C, 4 Kelvin the Helium turns into boiling liquid. An arm shoots out from the front of the roller coaster and removes a lid from the glass container.
VOICE (CONT'D)
2 Kelvin
At -271.15, 2K the Helium is suddenly still. It seeps up the edges of the container and pours over the side.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Weird, right? Zero viscosity weird
The liquid Helium pours onto Ossie's legs. He yells when one of his brittle legs snaps off.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Below 1 Kelvin, particles slow towards their lowest possible energy levels. Most chemical reactions slow down or become impossible although a few actually speed up.
A few little particles, labelled 'Free Radicals' whizz off into the darkness. The roller coaster continues to slow down. As it passes out of the decelerating electrodes, lasers are fired at it labelled 'cooling lasers'. There are six lasers, coming from different directions.
VOICE (CONT'D)
Below 500 nanokelvin we enter a world of strange Quantum effects as matter becomes more ordered and seems to merge together to form waves. This is just about as close as we get to Absolute Zero.
One of Ossie's arms snaps off. His eyes open even wider.
The roller coaster itself transforms into a wave shape with Ossie at the front looking blurred round the edges.
The roller coaster wave increases in size and frequency before bursting out of the end of the ride.
Ossie is deposited on the beach under the hot sun.
He has landed next to an old lady on a tartan rug. She looks up but keeps knitting.
Ossie starts to thaw out. He grabs his arm and leg and sticks them back onto his body. He lies on the sand and lets out a sigh of relief.
Suddenly he hears the same tune as before. He looks up to see an ice-cream van approaching.
Ossie runs screaming down the beach.
