Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Innovative Tuesday: The Invention of the Refrigerator

      Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of Nations Made Fun! I'll be your host, Mr. Nations, your tour guide to our massive, confusing world! Today on Innovative Tuesday, we'll be taking a look at the invention of the refrigerator, one of the most beneficial inventions in the world of shipping. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get straight into it!

     The Chinese and Indians were the first to invent some form of refrigeration, starting with cutting and storing and ice all the way to giant state-of-the-art walk-in refrigerators that can be programmed to temperatures of zero degrees, although these are thousands of dollars.

     When ice wasn't available or practical at the time, people would make their own iceboxes or find their own methods of storage. There are records of wooden boxes lined with tin or zinc and an insulating material such as cork, sawdust, or seaweed filled with snow and ice. While these methods are widely considered impractical today, it was the only way things could be kept cool long ago.

     John Gorrie, an American doctor, is credited with the invention of the first usable refrigerator. He used a simple method to create artificial ice that would keep things cool as long as it was powered. He received this honor in 1851.

     Refrigerators are used in our daily lives on a frequent basis. Many foods rely on constant cooling to stay fresh and edible and our lives wouldn't be the same without the assistance of a refrigerator.

     Fun Facts:

  • Albert Einstein patented a refrigerator in 1930 that had no moving parts and was geared towards an environmentally friendly solution to refrigeration that didn't require electricity.  
  • In the late 1800s, German scientist Carl Von Linde developed a method for liquefying large amounts of air required in refrigerators at the time.
  • When the refrigerator was invented, many companies realized the potential in the machine and decided to use them for shipping. This caused a boom in shipping and foreign products could reach faraway places much easier.
     Picture of the first electric refrigerator:
     Image result for first refrigerator
     Sources: https://www.livescience.com/57797-refrigerator-history.html

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