As Sussex goes through a period of intense cold we should spare a thought for some of the coldest places on Earth where temperatures rarely come above freezing. The coldest place is the East Antarctic Plateau, where temperatures can drop to below -92°C on a clear winter night. Personally the coldest place I have ever been is Kazakhstan where I was teaching at Pavlodar University for a month. It reached -23°C over a few days and I tried a simple experiment. I took a large cup of hot water and t