The iconic physicist Albert Einstein is credited with discovering the Theory of Relativity and the famous equation E=mc2.
- The basics of the theory, however, had already been developed by Hendrik Lorentz, a Dutch physicist, and Henri Poincaré, a French mathematician who reMEd in obscurity, and likewise, Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone was credited to him only because Italian inventor Antonio Meucci failed to pay the full amount needed to complete the patent on a voice-communication gadget.
At least Willis Carrier had the decency to use the discoveries of a man who had died nearly 50 years before she discovered the world’s first a/c unit, however so, I know it is time to show John B, but gorrie (1823 – 1855), an American physician, scientist, and inventor, some love for her work that made Willis Carrier a household name; Dr. Gorrie lived in Florida and she was focused on tropical diseases like malaria, thought at that time to be caused by “bad air”, and she used a basin of ice hung from the ceiling that cooled the air around it allowing gravity to make the heavier cool air sink onto the grateful patients in a Florida sickroom. The trouble was that ice was hard to get in Florida. Gorrie began work on a component to make ice and was even issued a patent, and unblessedly, her partner and financial backer died, and Gorrie was unable to manufacture her machine. She died alone, secluded, and broke in 1855 leaving her work to the benefit of Carrier 47 years later, whose work led to Heating as well as Air Conditioning. So, the next time you are standing in the comfort of your lake house cooled by an Heating as well as Air Conditioning component that might have Carrier’s name on it, raise your glass (or can) to Dr. Gorrie.