Absolute Zero is a scientific detective story about a remarkable group of pioneers who wanted to reach the ultimate extreme in temperature. This two-part programme is an epic journey from dark beginnings to an ultra-cool frontier.

The programme begins on a hot summer's day in 1620 with an alchemist's attempt to turn summer into winter inside the Great Hall of Westminster. Although this was performed as a stunt for King James, Cornelis Drebbel had unwittingly invented air conditioning.

Two centuries later at the Royal Institution, Michael Faraday carried out some unintentionally explosive experiments - turning gases into liquids - and discovered the principle of refrigeration. The idea did not catch on immediately because of the runaway success of an American entrepreneur, Frederic Tudor, who came up with the crazy idea of harvesting ice from frozen ponds in New England to sell in the Caribbean. The "Ice King", as he became known, sold ice all over the world until electric refrigerators became popular.

Perhaps the most bizarre story is the discovery of frozen food. The explorer Clarence Birdseye was ice fishing in Labrador when the temperature had fallen to -30 degrees. When he picked up his day's catch and threw it over his shoulder, the fish froze solid within minutes. A few weeks later, when he thawed them out and cooked them, he noticed they tasted surprisingly fresh. He had discovered the secret of flash-freezing. The basic concept was simple, but it took Birdseye another 10 years to perfect commercial fast freezing.

This episode traces the surprising history of how science enabled us to conquer the cold and transform the way we live and work today.