Hot or Cold is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the July 1981 issue of "Gallery" magazine. Later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, Griswold recounts a story told to him by a man named Simon Brooke, a chemist who worked as an assistant to the brilliant but unorthodox biochemist Lucas Atterbury. Atterbury had dedicated years to discovering a treatment for aging and achieving immortality. He succeeded in creating a formula that could reverse aging in mice, but the treatment had fatal side effects which he was working to eliminate.
On the day Atterbury finally solved the problem, he suffered a fatal stroke. With his dying words, he instructed Brooke to mix two unstable preparations, but the crucial detail was mumbled. Brooke understood the mixtures had to be held overnight at "forty degrees," but could not decipher whether Atterbury meant forty degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius. He also heard the phrase "doesn't matter," which he interpreted as a sign of his employer's fading consciousness.
Paralyzed by this ambiguity and knowing the solutions would lose potency by the next day, Brooke failed to act, believing he had lost the secret to immortality. Griswold, however, deduces the correct interpretation. He explains that the only temperature where the scale is irrelevant is forty degrees below zero, as -40° Celsius is equal to -40° Fahrenheit. This was the meaning behind Atterbury's final, seemingly incoherent words: "forty degrees... doesn't matter." Brooke's failure to recognize this cost him the chance at immortality.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Jennings
- Baranov
- Simon Brooke
- Lucas J. Atterbury