Cold is exhibited at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris

From December 5, 2017 to August 26, 2018, Paris Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie offers a new exhibition called “Cold”. What’s cold? What are the effects on living bodies? How can we create it? And many other questions will have their answers.

From December 5, 2017 to August 26, 2018, cold in all its shapes is highlighted at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie through a 600-sqm exhibition.

Focused on the theme: cold, a challenge for humanity, the exhibition allows us to discover the challenge taken up because of the cold by visiting three areas corresponding to varied universes: human body and living bodies, daily life and industrial applications, science and research.

Challenges for the living:

Discover what lies behind the notion of “apparent temperature” for humans, animals or plants.

Facing the cold, how do living react? What are the damage for our organism? What are the effects on plants? How do some animals survive where cold is the most extreme? How to use cold to heal, preserve or study living bodies? How can we cryopreserve a human? Does cold allow living bodies to stretch some limits? What are they?

Living with cold

Water being the main element constituting living bodies, their cells are likely to be damaged by the creation of ice crystals as soon as the temperature drops below 0°C (32°F). Yet, some very peculiar organisms can avoid this fatality.

In the “Living with cold” area featuring three themed blocks, discover the limits cold can stretch when we are refereeing to living bodies:

Human and cold
Animals and plants: doing with cold
Healing because of cold?

Don’t miss:

Look at you when you’re cold! Enter a cabin where it’s 5°C (41°F) and discover the mechanisms triggered in the human body.
Hardening because of the frost: follow the evolution of a bud throughout the year and understand the role of low temperatures in the development of a tree. A poetic installation illustrating the four seasons explains the hardening of a cherry tree because of the frost.

Challenges for the society:

Discover the “faux” cold, how it’s used in our daily lives and in the industry field.

How do we use cold in refrigerating machines? How do they work? Why does the refrigerator warm up your kitchen? Why shouldn’t you break the cold chain? What are the cold applications in the various fields of the human activity and the daily life?

Creating cold and using it

Visit the three blocks devoted to the challenges of the society in order to know more about the quest of “created” cold and its applications.

Natural cold, “faux” cold: follow the history of the use of natural cold until the intervention of the refrigerating machines and discover the natural phenomena allowing to drop temperature.
Creating and using cold: get the keys to understand how refrigerating machines work and the questions about their improvement included in the issues of sustainable development. Discover or rediscover the many applications of cold in the daily life and in the industry?
Cold and food: discover the role of cold in the food business and technics such as fast freezing. Observe the action of low temperatures on food to better understand the effects of your daily applications: refrigeration and freezing.

Don’t miss:

Clean up your fridge! Clean faux food in a fridge: diary, vegetables, meat, eggs, butter… Get advice about the ideal tidying, environmentally friendly movements and discover the preservation temperature advised for each food.
Cold factory: discover how cold is used in the process of preparing and processing food with cold before ending up in our plates.

Challenges for Science:

In a décor inspired by low temperature labs, get acquainted with tools and works of the searchers. Discover the notion of absolute zero and the strange behavior of material when approaching this extreme cold limit.

What do we know about the material behavior at such extremely low temperatures? What does happen when we force gas to liquefy when cooled down? Why do we do it? What is absolute zero? Why can’t we ever approach it? How does the material behave when approaching absolute zero?

Cryogeny and low temperatures

In the 19^th century, we used to call permanent gases all the gases we couldn’t liquefy by simple compression at room temperature: they had to be cooled down. This scientific challenge had been defeated at the turn of the century. Liquefying these gases allowed to create very low temperatures (under 120 K or -153.15°C or -243.67°F) leading then to a whole range of scientific and technic disciplines studying them: cryogeny.

Low temperatures are a true challenge for those handling them: cold can be contained, controlled and used with the greatest care, at risk of losing control!

In the “Challenges for Science” area, explore the phenomena related to the effects of low temperatures on material.

Don’t miss:

Diving at -196°C (-320.8°F): virtually dive a balloon, a flower, a kiwi, a cuddling toy, a hot coffee, a sweet… in liquid nitrogen. And discover what happens!
Experiments with “genuine” cold: the “Challenge for Science” area is open onto a meditation area where you can follow spectacular experiments regularly completed by scientific intermediaries.

In shorts, here’s a very playful and nice exhibition like the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie enjoys doing, it so that we can know everything about cold.

Practical information:
Cold
At the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie
From December 5, 2017 to August 26, 2018
From Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
And Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m;

From 9 years old
Regular rate: €12
Reduced rate: €9
The ticket gives access to every Explora exhibitions, the Planetarium, the L’Agronaute submarine and the Louis-Lumière cinema

Please note that it's been over 4 years since our last visit, so the place and experience may have changed.

Cold is exhibited at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris

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