Air Conditioning
Ever been stuck in a traffic jam on a boiling hot day? You’ve run out of water and would swap your nearest and dearest for an air conditioning knob in your hire car. Of course this wouldn’t necessarily happen to you if you live in America because everybody has this brilliant invention called air conditioning! The perfect antidote to scorching temperatures air conditioning is a thing of beauty. But where did it begin?
A self contained air conditioning unit
For an answer it is necessary to travel back in time a few thousand years!
Some say the earliest form of air conditioning could be found in the homes of the rich and the powerful in Ancient Rome. In order to cool a room, water would ingeniously be circulated through the walls via the aqueduct.
The Imperial Palace of the Tang Dynasty (during the second century) relied upon a form of water powered rotary fan in addition to cooling the air through pumping jet streams of fountain water.
Travel across time to Medieval Iran (or Persia as once it was known) for examples of early air conditioning. Through circulating water and air through wind towers and rainwater cisterns, buildings could be cooled during times of unbearable heat.
Medieval Egypt enjoyed their own unique form of air conditioning (as you would imagine!) through ventilation units. During the thirteenth century it was reported that a plentiful number of houses throughout Cairo. A ventilator that was used at this time could vary in size according to the home it was bought to accommodate.
Air conditioning as we know it however came about in the nineteenth century as a direct consequence of chemistry advancement. It wasn’t too much time before the very first large scale electric air conditioning unit was implemented. In 1902 an American engineer by the name of Willis Carrier officially invented the first modern air conditioning system.
Today an air conditioning unit (or AC) should be successful in stabilising the temperature of air and humidity within an area through (commonly) a refrigeration or evaporation. It is used for providing a cooling system in the home, workplace or road vehicles.
The basic air conditioning system produced by Willis Carrier in 1902 was recognised as such because it was able to conduct the four fundamental functions, those of temperature control, humidity control, air cleansing ability and air circulation and ventilation control. And so modern air conditioning in our homes, cars and shopping centres was born. And thank goodness for that!
