Winter can be sometimes very cold

　Susumu Terakawa

There was a news report saying that 34 people were killed by severe weather brought from the polar region to the northern part of the United States. Most of them were homeless people. The news reminded me of my extraordinary experience of coldness.


1. Wind from the North Pole

 When I lived in Rockville near Washington DC, I once had to walk more than a mile against a strong wind from the north. Normally, it was not necessary, but was necessary at the time because my car was broken and needed to be fixed at a service station far from my residence. In the evening, I got a phone call from a service man saying that he had fixed my car. I decided to walk up the Rockville Pike to pick up my car. 


On my way, the wind from the North Pole happened to be so strong and cold that my face soon became senseless and then terribly painful. It was the coldest wind I ever had in my life. I did have a muffler around my neck and mouth. That was better than none. However, I could not walk forward. The only possible way to advance was to walk backward just step by step against the strong wind. Nobody was seen on the street. If the distance were longer than 2 miles, I would have been killed like poor homeless people by the merciless cold. I should use a taxi or pick up the car the next day. No experience, no decision. Luckily, my car was smooth on the way back home. 

(The 1st Part was written in February, 2026)




2. Cold London

Another memory concerning cold:  Near the end of 1996, I was in London for a collaboration with a guy in King’s College London. After 2 weeks of continuous work, it was Christmas day. I knew everybody in the lab would disappear on that day, but I wanted to work since the data collected was not enough. I used a card key everyday to enter the university building as it taced to a public street. They said the tube (subway) as well as bus will not be operated on the day. So, I reserved a taxi near my rental house in Harlow, located 30 min drive from downtown. Taxi driver was reluctant to accept as I asked for a go at 9:30 and a return at 16:00. I promised to offer enough tip. He finally promised to make a round trip twice a day. In the morning at 10:00 on Christmas day, I got out of the taxi, and walked to the locked door leading  to the lab. To my surprise, the door was covered with a metal shutter showing no slot for any card key. It was intended to lock out any workers on the special holiday.

As I looked at the far leaving taxi, a whistling wind blew up my coat to give me a challenging notice of coldness. It was the center of London, but I saw nobody walking in the streets. No shops were open, no restaurants either. I could do nothing but walk and walk. After a while I sat on a bench in a park. In fact, there were many parks in London, all situated in the wide field free of wind shield. I looked for any space underground, but found none. The stairway to the tube was all closed. Only one religion that barely saved my life was Hebrew. After walking here and there for a couple of hours, I came across an open Kosher cafe. Christmas day was another working day for Jewish people. The very small cafe served doughnuts and hot coffee. I could stay there for 2 hours until other customers appeared.  Later, I found another Kosher cafe open which was also as small as an eel’s bed. Thus I could survive the terribly cold holiday. I hated the Japanese mottau, “researchers should work even on holidays”. 

 (The 2nd Part was written in February, 2026.)
 


3. Stars over Siberia

Finishing my work at the King’s College on the last day of that year, I departed Harlow and flew from Heathlow. Up in the sky 11,000 m over Siberia, on board flight 007 from London to Tokyo, stars were astonishingly beautiful. Only a few people occupied the upper deck of the jumbo jet as it was the last day of the year. The inside of the aircraft was pretty dark for the night travellers. Windows were tilted facing the above sky. Under ideal conditions, I looked at the stars while standing on my knees, like a child looking at the windows of a train. Luggage boxes furnished under the window on the upper deck served as a perfect support for binoculars which I bought in Whiteleys as a Christmas gift for myself. In fact, the scenery of stars was a real gift.


No flickering was seen even in faint stars. Many small stars were seen between major stars. Major stars like Sirius looked less brighter than usual, while other stars looked much brighter. It was a bit difficult to figure out familiar constellations except for the Orion. North Star was at an altitude of about 75 degrees, indicating that the plane flew along the latitude of 75 degrees north. Great Bear and Casiopeia were facing each other across the Polar Star, one in east and the other in west. The Winter Milky Way was so gorgeous bridging both celestial hemispheres. Canis major and Canis minor showed their figure elegantly. C. major had a clear head, while C. minor has a clear body, legs and a tail. 


One of my cusins was a flight attendant in KLM. Once I asked her, “Is it true that you can not tell the lights on the ground from stars in the sky when viewed from a jet plane?”. She said, “I don’t know because I am always busy on board”. I saw many lights scattered across Siberia. They were more frequent than I imagined before. The lights on the ground did not look like stars. They were more irregular in color and size. They tended to flock in groups separated by large dark area. Lights on the ground constatly drifted away out of the binocular sight, but lights in the sky did not move at all. They are located at extreme distances.


 The temperature outside the plane must be -50℃ or so. Beyond the stratosphere, there is no immediate sign of warm life. The space is deep and cold indeed. There is nothing in interstellar space but few molecules or particles only. The pressure is not measurable there. The temperature is close to absolute zero (0 degree Kelvin). I hope there will be some life forms millions of light years ahead. If so, the cold universe can be agitated to regain its iself-consciousness. The space will be resuscitated from its destined fate of thermodynamic death.　　　

     (The 3rd Part was written during my jet flight at the end of 1996.)