putterings 070 < 071 > 072 index
absolute zero
“Say, maybe Henry wasn’t in cold storage with the whole family from that moment. I see those fellows in the laboratories are puttering around just now trying to get the absolute zero of temperature — say, Henry got it, and he don’t know a thing about chemistry.
“Then I jounced Hank. I proceeded to let him know he was up against it.”
— Harry Leon Wilson, The Spenders: A Tale of the Third Generation (Boston, 1902) : 148 (NYPL copy, one of several at hathitrust)
Harry Leon Wilson (1867-1939)
novelist (his Bunker Bean (1919) involves a telegraphic cipher code *); also
typesetter, stenographer, pugilist (?).
father of Charis.
wikipedia