The Hindu Business Line : Einstein had US patent for refrigerator

But what schoolboys or even many scientists might not know is a small fact that the great scientist developed a refrigeration system, which earned him and his student a US patent in 1930.

The patent was assigned to Electrolux. However, it is a different matter now that the company never made an effort to commercialise it.

Incidentally, the world is celebrating the centenary year of the publication of Albert Einstein's path-breaking paper on Relativity (E=MC2) in 2005.

A similar parallel can also be seen in the case of Galileo Galilee, one of the all-time great scientific minds. Ask any student, and you could be sure the response would pin him to his contributions to astronomy and the laws of gravitation.

Bringing to light this and similar other interesting facts, the Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC) of the Delhi-based Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), said the US patent granted to Einstein and his student Leo Szilard on November 11, 1930, was assigned to Electrolux, US.

Recalling the developments, the PFC, in a case study of the patent, said it was an accident in a Berlin home in the 20s that moved the scientist. An entire family had died due to the rupture of a seal in a refrigerator leading to leakage of toxic fumes.

Being Einstein, he pondered over the incident and felt that if all the moving parts were removed from a refrigerator, perhaps the chances of such accidents would be minimised. This idea, he pursued with his student Leo Szilard and in a few years, it evolved into an invention, which brought them the US patent 1,781,541.

The Patent had five claims related to the refrigerating apparatus, method of refrigerating and so on. Einstein, who worked in the Swiss Patent Office as an examiner briefly, used his skills in drafting. For example, he used the word conduit instead of say pipe, tube, channel or duct in the system, with the intent of making the choice broad and in turn the claim also broad.

The basic ideas incorporated by Einstein and Szilard in their dream refrigerator were: It should have no moving part; it requires only a heat source, such as a gas burner, electricity or even solar energy. In contrast to Einstein's idea, today's refrigeration systems have moving parts such as motors, compressors and so on.

The PFC study also found that this duo obtained many other patents on refrigeration, mostly in Germany, estimated number being 45. It would, perhaps, be worthwhile to explore the ideas of Einstein and Szilard in the light of opening up new routes for developing alternative refrigeration systems.

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