ABSTRACT
The great American cryogenic engineer Russel B. Scott once noted that many cryogenic applications require a perfection of thermal insulation unapproached in any other field. For instance, in some experiments, in which temperatures of 0.01K were produced by adiabatic demagnetization, a 2.5 g specimen was so well insulated from its surroundings that it received heat at a rate of only about 3.6 ergs=min. This may be better appreciated when the energy is expressed in more easily visualized terms: the specimen would produce more energy upon being dropped 1mm than it would receive by heat transfer in an hour.
