The beginnings of A/C
For the rest of this month, we will be looking at some fun facts on air conditioning(A/C), otherwise fondly referred to as “nya-nya”. But first, let’s summarise a recent BBC article on how this amazing invention came into being.
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Imagine we could control the weather - pushing a button to make it warmer or cooler, wetter or drier.The implications would be enormous.
No more droughts or floods, no heat waves or icy roads. Deserts would become verdant. Crops would never fail.
In fact climate change has sparked some crazy-sounding ideas for hacking the climate, such as spraying sulphuric acid into the upper atmosphere, or dumping quicklime in the oceans.
Ever since our ancestors mastered fire, humans have been able to warm themselves. Cooling down when it's hot has been more challenging. Clever as humans are, however, we're nowhere near precision control of the weather. Outside, at least.
The eccentric Roman emperor Elagabulus is believed to have sent slaves to bring snow down from the mountains and pile it in his garden, where breezes would carry the cooler air inside.
Needless to say, this was not a scalable solution. At least, not until the 19th century, when Boston entrepreneur Frederic Tudor amassed an unlikely fortune doing something similar.
He took blocks of ice from frozen New England lakes in winter, insulated them in sawdust and shipped them to warmer climates during summer.
Since the invention of air conditioning however, we have been able to control the weather inside and that has had some far-reaching and unexpected effects.
The notion of air conditioning as we know it began in 1902, but it had nothing to do with human comfort. New York's Sackett & Wilhelms Lithographing and Printing Company became frustrated with varying humidity levels when trying to print in colour.
The same paper had to be printed four times in four colours, and if the humidity changed between print runs, the paper would slightly expand or contract.
Even a millimetre's misalignment looked awful. The printers asked heating company Buffalo Forge to devise a system to control humidity.
A young engineer called Willis Carrier figured out that circulating air over coils that were chilled by compressed ammonia maintained the humidity at a constant 55per cent.. The printers were delighted.
Buffalo Forge was soon selling Willis Carrier's invention wherever humidity posed problems, such as to flour mills and the Gillette Corporation, where excessive moisture rusted the razor blades.
These early industrial clients didn't much care about making temperatures more tolerable for their workers - that turned out to be an incidental benefit. But by 1906, Carrier was exploring the potential for "comfort" applications in public buildings like theatres.
It was an astute choice. Historically, theatres often shut down for summer: no windows, human bodies tightly packed together and, before electricity, lighting provided by flares.
New England ice had been briefly popular. In the summer of 1880, New York's Madison Square Theatre used four tonnes a day: an eight-foot fan blew air over the ice and through ducts towards the audience.
Unfortunately, though cool, the air was also damp and with pollution increasing in New England's lakes, the melting ice sometimes released unpleasant smells. Willis Carrier's "Weathermaker" was much more practical.
The general public first experienced air