The Man Who Invented Air Conditioning

The idea of air conditioning probably started in the 19th century when a British inventor named Michael Faraday uncovered the secret of chilling air. His theory was that if you compress and liquefy a particular gas, chilled air is produced as the ammonia evaporates.

In 1842, many years after Faraday’s discovery of chilling air, Florida doctor John Gorrie devised a compressor to produce ice. He used this technology to treat malaria and yellow fever patients by having cool air blown over them. Eventually, he envisioned his ice-making machine could regulate building temperatures and even bigger areas – a centralized air conditioning for an entire city. Like Faraday’s, Gorrie’s dream was not realized after his financial backer died. In 1855, his ice-making machine and idea of air conditioning died along with him.

It was only in the early 1900s that the air conditioning idea came into realization. The genius who invented air conditioning was a New York engineer named Willis Haviland Carrier. Carrier finished his Masters in Engineering in 1901, six years after he was given a scholarship at Cornell University. After graduating, he started a job in the heating engineering department of the Buffalo Forge Company, designing heating systems.

The very first air conditioner was designed to stabilize the environment of a Brooklyn printing plant which had trouble caused by fluctuations in heat and humidity. In 1906, Willis Haviland Carrier was granted a patent for his “Apparatus for Treating Air”, another addition to a number of patents he owned. The man who invented air conditioning deserves to get the title, so Carrier is recognized as the father of air conditioning.

Carrier released to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1911 his much-inquired basic Rational Psychrometric Formulae. Even today, the formula exists as a basis for all fundamental calculations in the air conditioning industry. It was said that he got the idea one foggy night while waiting for a train. He was thinking about the problem of temperature and humidity control and as the train came, he came to understand the relationship between humidity, temperature, and dew point.

Thanks to the person who invented air conditioning, a lot of industries like textiles, tobacco, processed goods and medical capsules bloomed and flourished due to air conditioning. In 1915 along with six other engineers, Carrier established the Carrier Engineering Corporation, a company dedicated to the improvement of air conditioning technology.

Carrier invented a centrifugal refrigeration machine in 1921 which became the first method for air conditioning large spaces. Beginning 1924, rather than industrial need, air conditioners were in demand for human comfort. Human cooling stretched from department stores to movie theatres. From there sprang the demand for smaller units to which the Carrier Company answered.

History tells us that in 1928, Carrier developed the first air conditioner for private home use, called “Weathermaker”. Although The Great Depression and World War II reduced its sales, it climbed back up the scales after those times.

At first, the person who invented air conditioning did not intend the cooling system to be for interior structure cooling. However, thanks to Carrier, homes can now be cosy, cool and comfortable!