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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the chilling-effect dept.

Ever since our ancestors mastered fire, humans have been able to warm themselves. Cooling down when it's hot has been more challenging.

The eccentric Roman emperor Elagabulus 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 climes for summer.

Until artificial ice-making took off, mild New England winters caused panic about an "ice famine".

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:16PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:16PM (#521619)

    Yes, but what's interesting is that refrigerators came before air conditioning. See Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. Fridges (the vapor-compression type we use now, not simple iceboxes) were invented in the 1830s, and the first practical ones in the 1850s, with commercial ice-making machines being in use in the early 1850s.

    Basically we have this backwards: all Carrier did was take existing refrigeration technology, which generally used ammonia, and apply it to rooms for controlling humidity, with the side effect of keeping people cool. And of course the big thing that probably made this feasible was the availability of electricity cheap enough to do so, something that didn't exist in the 1850s when they probably had to use mechanical means to drive the compressors, such as water wheels.

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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:56PM (2 children)

    by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:56PM (#521638)

    Steam engines were well developed by 1850. It was used in 1837 to drive ventilation fans.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(machine) [wikipedia.org]
    Having spent a good portion of my adult life in tropical climes I've found that lacking shade and a cooling ocean breeze, a ceiling fan works wonders. Also drives the mosquitoes away at night.
    Aside note: to me it seems it would have been easier to send the Roman Emperor to the snow rather than bringing the snow to him. But I guess despots are unable to think like that.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:03PM (#521871)

      Aside note: to me it seems it would have been easier to send the Roman Emperor to the snow rather than bringing the snow to him. But I guess despots are unable to think like that.

      You have it backwards: being able to make everyone else do irrational things for your enjoyment is one of the biggest perks of being a despot.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:03PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:03PM (#521939)

      Ok, but even with steam engines now you're looking at having to have a big, noisy steam engine and all the associated overhead (giant pile of coal, big smoke-belching smokestack) located right next to your A/C unit to make it work. Installing this at the White House means it won't be white much longer.

      This is one of the reasons we use electricity; we can move the power sources somewhere far away from the places we utilize the energy.