The Man Who Cooled the World | Willis Carrier's Air Conditioner
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00:00Humans have been trying to find a way to stay cool for all of recorded history.
00:05From those in ancient Egypt soaking reeds to hang in their windows, effectively cooling
00:08the breeze as it blew in, to ancient Romans learning to circulate water through the walls
00:13of their homes using aqueduct-like pipes reserved for many of the wealthiest citizens, though
00:18one emperor would top them all.
00:20The Roman emperor Elagabalus ordered snow and ice to be delivered from nearby mountains
00:25to be brought home on the backs of donkeys so that he could stay cool during the summer.
00:30This was extremely inefficient and out of the equation for all but the most powerful,
00:35but people needed a way to stay cool, and a solution wouldn't come until 1902 when
00:39the first electrified air conditioning unit was installed, though its purpose was not
00:44to cool its building.
00:46Air conditioning would go on to transform humanity, giving us summer blockbusters at
00:51movie theaters, computers, and allowing us to expand into climates once thought unlivable.
00:56This is Learn Something New.
01:00While many civilizations prior had implicitly figured out ways of cooling, Benjamin Franklin
01:06worked to understand why this was, and how it might be more effectively done.
01:10In a letter he wrote in 1758, he described an experiment he conducted with John Hadley,
01:16a professor at Cambridge University, where they studied cooling by the evaporation of
01:21various liquids to bring the temperature of a thermometer from 65 degrees Fahrenheit to
01:26just 7 degrees.
01:28While Ben Franklin wouldn't be able to use this to create any machine to replicate the
01:32effect at scale, others were quick to pick up the torch where he left off.
01:36Which leads us to Michael Faraday, the scientist who made many discoveries, including finding
01:41out that a magnet rotating inside a coiled wire can induce a current as well as developing
01:47the famous Faraday Cage.
01:49But the discovery that isn't often attributed to him is his discoveries relating to refrigerant
01:54gases.
01:55You see, in 1820, he learned that if he compressed ammonia into a liquid and then allowed it
02:01to evaporate, the air in his laboratory cooled.
02:05Ten years later, this concept would be adopted by American Dr. John Gorey, who first designed
02:10an engine that could pull in air, compress it, then run it through pipes allowing it
02:15to cool the air as it expanded.
02:17He patented the idea in 1851, believing that it could be used in every building across
02:22the entire world to keep everyone cool, not just for his hospital patients.
02:27But after an extended tour through many cities throughout the Southeast United States, he
02:31found that nobody was willing to help him fund his idea, and thus it was shelved, at
02:37least until he realized that the pipes would eventually freeze and form ice.
02:41Though his ice machine would draw annoyance from some at the time, as the New York Globe
02:46painted him as someone who believed he could possess the power of God, though many suspect
02:51this was partly propaganda from the natural ice industry of the time, which you can learn
02:55about in my video about the Ice King, Keeping America Cool Before Air Conditioning.
03:00But despite that, it would be ice that was used to make a makeshift air conditioning
03:04unit to make President James Garfield more comfortable on July 2nd, 1881, after Charles
03:10Guiteau fired two shots from his revolver into Garfield's back.
03:14As he lay in his room in 95 degree Fahrenheit heat, naval engineers worked to develop a
03:20method to keep him cool.
03:21It ended up being an astronomer named Simon Newcomb that helped develop a new machine
03:27that used an engine connected to pipes that powered a fan blowing over a giant bucket
03:31of ice.
03:32He explained that the device held 6 tons of ice and was able to lower the president's
03:37room temperature from a sweltering 95 to just 75 degrees, but all the while consumed hundreds
03:43of pounds of ice every single hour, and using around half a million pounds of ice over the
03:48course of two months before the president ultimately passed away.
03:53After this, public interest in air conditioning largely died off because, similarly to El
03:58Gabales before him, the president's system was simply unattainable for the everyday man
04:04or even for many of the biggest companies of the time.
04:06It was just too inefficient, but at the turn of the century, it would be brought back out
04:11into the spotlight with new advancements in technology that would lead to the early form
04:16of air conditioning units we see today.
04:18Willis Carrier had a breakthrough in July of 1902 when he designed his apparatus for
04:24treating air, as he called it, which was first installed in the Sackett-Williams Publishing
04:29Building in Brooklyn, New York.
04:31This device built upon all that had been created before it, and it blew air over tubes containing
04:36a coolant, though in reality, its use was not for cooling.
04:41It was less about the use of bringing down the temperature of the building and more about
04:45bringing down the humidity in the building, because there was excess water in the building's
04:49air that was damaging the publishing company's paper.
04:52Carrier's device was especially significant because it was powered by electricity, rather
04:57than the hand-cranking nature of the ones that came before it, officially earning him
05:01the title as the inventor of air conditioning.
05:05But in the same year he installed his into the Publishing House's building, another
05:09inventor was installing his cooling device into the New York Stock Exchange building.
05:14Alfred Wolff's device used three ammonia absorption machines, the same compound Faraday
05:20used 80 years prior.
05:22Each of these machines was able to cool with the equivalent capability of 150 tons of ice.
05:28After installing this into the building, Wolff became the leading air conditioning engineer
05:32in New York City, though over the course of his career, he would only wind up installing
05:36three residential versions of his device, with most focusing on industrial use.
05:42From there, Carrier began to expand the use of his air conditioning units, creating them
05:46for hotels, department stores, and even the White House and Capitol.
05:51But it would gain the most popularity from the public for its use in theaters.
05:55Carrier's air conditioner was first introduced in 1925 on Memorial Day weekend in the Rivoli
06:02Theater in Times Square.
06:04Theaters had traditionally been closed during the summer because a lack of windows along
06:08with a crowd of humans tightly packed together had led to a surge of heat-related ailments.
06:13After the introduction of air conditioners, however, people would flock to air-conditioned
06:17movie theaters all across the country on some of the hottest summer days, leading to the
06:22summer blockbuster scheduling of films that we see today.
06:26From here, the air conditioning unit would only become more efficient, and as it improved,
06:32its impact could be seen across the country, with its effects still able to be seen today.
06:37Air conditioning made urban growth and industrial production in the southern states possible
06:42despite their heated climates.
06:44It helped cool the first computers that took up entire rooms, and even changed architecture.
06:50For a long time, skyscrapers could only go up so high before the top floors would get
06:54unbearably hot, but with air conditioning, they felt they could go as high as they wanted.
07:00Heat was no longer the limiting factor.
07:03Not to mention that mortality from extremely hot days dropped roughly 80% when comparing
07:09the average deaths before mass adoption in 1900-1959 to after many homes began being
07:15built with AC units pre-installed from 1960 on.
07:19Now, approximately 10% of all the electricity consumed in the United States is for air conditioning
07:26purposes, costing Americans around $30 billion a year.
07:31But that's a cost that nearly everyone seems to agree is worth it.
07:36Thanks for watching!
07:37If you liked this video, please consider liking, subscribing, and sharing it.
07:41And as always, thanks again, and I will see you in the next one.