A toast to the man who invented ice cubes.

[greatauntoftriplets]

This is not something you think about. Ice cubes are there, always have been in my lifetime. But tonight I came across something in a novel that mentioned the man who first figured out how to make ice cubes.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that you have information a few clicks away. Here -- for your reading pleasure -- is information about the man who is icing the drinks of so many tonight.

Dr. John Gorrie
Refrigeration Pioneer

"Dr. John Gorrie (1803 - 1855), an early pioneer in the invention of the artificial manufacture of ice, refrigeration, and air conditioning, was granted the first U.S. Patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851. Dr. Gorrie's basic principle is the one most often used in refrigeration today; namely, cooling caused by the rapid expansion of gases. Using two double acting force pumps he first condensed and then rarified air. His apparatus, initially designed to treat yellow fever patients, reduced the temperature of compressed air by interjecting a small amount of water into it. The compressed air was submerged in coils surrounded by a circulating bath of cooling water. He then allowed the interjected water to condense out in a holding tank, andreleased or rarified, the compressed air into a tank of lower pressure containing brine; This lowered the temperature of the brine to 26 degrees F. or below, and immersing drip-fed, brick-sized, oil coated metal containers of non-saline water, or rain water, into the brine, manufactured ice bricks. The cold air was released in an open system into the atmosphere.

"The first known artificial refrigeration was scientifically demonstrated by William Cullen in a laboratory performance at the University of Glasgow in 1748, when he let ethyl ether boil into a vacuum. In 1805, Oliver Evans in the United States designed but never attempted to build, a refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid. Using Evans' refrigeration concept, Jacob Perkins of the U.S. and England, developed an experimental volatile liquid, closed-cycle compressor in 1834.

"Commercial refrigeration is believed to have been initiated by an American businessman, Alexander C. Twinning using sulphuric ether in 1856. Shortly afterward, an Australian, James Harrison, examined the refrigerators used by Gorrie and Twinning, and introduced vapor (ether) compression refrigeration to the brewing and meat packing industries.

"The granting of a U.S. Patent in 1860 to Ferdinand P.E. Carre of France, for his development of a closed, ammonia-absorption system, laid the foundation for widespread modern refrigeration. Unlike vapor-compression machines which used air, Carre used rapidly expanding ammonia which liquifies at a much lower temperature than water, and is thus able to absorb more heat. Carre's refrigeration became, and still is, the most widely used method of cooling. The development of a number of synthetic refrigerants in the 1920's, removed the need to be concerned about the toxic danger and odor of ammonia leaks."

http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~ihas/gorrie/fridge.htm

[Don_G]

1. And A Few Years Later

Vapor compression principals were used to liquify and seperate hydrogen and oxygen for use as fuel in the space program ultimately leading to the space program and orbiting satellite techology used for communications and the Hubble Space Telescope today.

[ex_jew]

2. Actually the frozen-water trade brought millions of tons of ice

every year to people around the world in the 19th century, long after Dr. Gorrie was in his grave. Not to belittle his accomplishment, but there was an alternative. Just read a fairly interesting book on this subject.

[Andy_Stephenson]

3. I'll drink to that

:toast: