The appliance of science

SOMETHING quite surprising I've learned from tonight's episode of THE SECRET GENIUS OF MODERN LIFE (BBC2, 8pm) is there's no such thing as cold. "According to the laws of physics," explains presenter Hannah Fry, "cold isn't a thing. Cold is just the absence of heat.

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"You can't cool something down, you can only take heat away."

Which is news to me, I must say, but then science has never been my strong point.

So why is Hannah telling us this? It's because she wants us to know how a fridge really works, that being the everyday piece of technology she's focusing on this week. And to help her explain, she's ripping an old one apart - as she does with every bit of tech she explores on this show, only this time with added brutality - in order to expose its innards and tell us what they do.