History of Artificial Cold, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Issues

291 Pages·2014·4.439 MB·English

by  (auth.), Kostas Gavroglu (eds.)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 299
Kostas Gavroglu Editor
History of Artificial
Cold, Scientific,
Technological and
Cultural Issues
History of Artifi cial Cold, Scientifi c,
Technological and Cultural Issues
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY
OF SCIENCE
Editors
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
JÜRGEN RENN, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens
Managing Editor
LINDY DIVARCI, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Editorial Board
THEODORE ARABATZIS, University of Athens
ALISA BOKULICH, Boston University
HEATHER E. DOUGLAS, University of Waterloo
JEAN GAYON, Université Paris 1
THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University
HUBERT GOENNER, University of Goettingen
JOHN HEILBRON, University of California, Berkeley
DIANA KORMOS-BUCHWALD, California Institute of Technology
CHRISTOPH LEHNER, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
PETER MCLAUGHLIN, Universität Heidelberg
AGUSTÍ NIETO-GALAN, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
NUCCIO ORDINE, Universitá della Calabria
ANA SIMÕES, Universidade de Lisboa
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Harvard University
BAICHUN ZHANG, Chinese Academy of Science
VOLUME 299
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/5710
Kostas Gavroglu
Editor
History of Artifi cial Cold,
Scientifi c, Technological
and Cultural Issues
Editor
Kostas Gavroglu
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Athens
Athens , Greece
ISSN 0068-0346
ISBN 978-94-007-7198-7 ISBN 978-94-007-7199-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7199-4
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013951643
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Foreword
This volume attempts to bring together recent scholarship on the different aspects
of the history of artifi cial cold. Such a history involves history of science and
technology, business history, issues in gender studies and issues in cultural anthro-
pology. The physical phenomena of the very cold, the large scale production and
utilization of cold, the frozen food industry and the dramatic changes brought about
by the home refrigerator are all part of the saga of artifi cial cold. There are indications
that since 1000 BC the Chinese had developed the techniques for storing and
preserving natural ice and since then people in many other localities devised
analogous methods. It is, however, during the late nineteenth century, and most
importantly the twentieth century, that artifi cially produced cold revealed deeply
intriguing phenomena, it became an indispensable part of our lives, created indus-
tries with global activities, induced trade worth billions, and brought about a new
commodity that of frozen foodstuffs.
The book includes essays which analyse a number of questions in three subject
of cold categories: in the history of low temperature physics, in the large scale
production and in the consumption of cold. The main reasons for including
articles from all three subjects is to display the many sidedness of the activities
related to the production, preservation, transportation, distribution and consump-
tion of cold a nd to underline the parallel “lives” of the developments in the under-
standing of the phenomena in the very cold and those related to the large scale
utilization of cold. An attempt is made to bring to surface some of the relevant
historiographical issues for a social and cultural history of artifi cial cold.
I would like to thank Ms. Antonia Pavli, a doctoral student in history of technology,
for her immense help with the editorial work and Ms. Lucy Fleet, associate editor
for Philosophy and History of Science at Springer Publishers for being so helpful
and patient throughout the preparation of this volume.
v
vi Foreword
My own interest in the history of artifi cial cold owes much to the work we had
done with Yorgos Goudaroulis (1945–1996). His early death deprived the community
of historians and philosophers of science and technology in Greece of a teacher and
a uniquely perceptive scholar. We were, also, close friends, and this present volume
is an acknowledgment to his memory.
Department of History and Philosophy of Science Kostas Gavroglu
University of Athens, Greece
Contents
1 Historiographical Issues in the History of Cold ................................... 1
Kostas Gavroglu
Part I Investigating the Very Cold
2 Early Modern History of Cold: Robert Boyle
and the Emergence of a New Experimental Field
in Seventeenth Century Experimental Philosophy .............................. 21
Christiana Christopoulou
3 James Dewar and His Route to the Liquefaction of Hydrogen .......... 53
J.S. Rowlinson
4 The Cryogenic Laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh
Onnes: An Early Case of Big Science .................................................... 65
Dirk van Delft
5 Superconductivity—A Challenge to Modern Physics .......................... 83
Christian Joas and Georges Waysand
6 Superfl uidity: How Quantum Mechanics Became Visible .................. 93
Sébastien Balibar
7 The Physics of Cold in the Cold War—“On-Line Computing”
Between the ICBM Program and Superconductivity .......................... 119
Johannes Knolle and Christian Joas
Part II Industries of Cold
8 Domestic Ice-Making Machines 1830–1930 .......................................... 135
Simón Reif-Acherman
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viii Contents
9 Carl Linde and His Relationship with Georges Claude:
The Cooperation Between Two Independent Inventors
in Cryogenics and Its Side Effects ......................................................... 171
Hans-Liudger Dienel
10 Meeting Artifi cial Cold: Expositions
and Refrigeration, 1896–1937 ................................................................ 189
Guillaume de Syon
Part III Consuming Cold
11 The Introduction of Frozen Foods in West Germany
and Its Integration into the Daily Diet .................................................. 201
Ulrike Thoms
12 The Means of Modernization, Freezing Technologies
and the Cultural Politics of Everyday Life, Norway 1940–1965 ......... 231
Terje Finstad
13 The Invention of Refrigerated Transport
and the Development of the International Dressed Meat Trade ......... 251
Jonathan Rees
14 ‘Fresher than Fresh’. Consumer Attitudes
Towards the Development of the Cold Chain
in Post-2WW Greece ............................................................................... 267
Faidra Papanelopoulou
Index ................................................................................................................. 281
About the Authors
Sébastien Balibar g raduated at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) (Paris, 1976)
after undergraduate studies at the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), He is presently a
CNRS Directeur de Recherche at the ENS in Paris and a Member of the Academie
des Sciences (France). He received the Fritz London memorial award in 2005.
He has lectured in Columbus, Konstanz, Kyoto, and Harvard University. His main
scientifi c contributions are in the fi elds of quantum fl uids and solids, crystal surfaces,
wetting, phase transitions, cavitation in simple and complex liquids, supersolidity
and plasticity in quantum crystals. He published more than 200 scientifi c articles
and gave about 100 invited communications in international conferences. He wrote
two books: La Pomme et l’atome Odile (Jacob, 2005) [ The atom and the Apple ,
Princeton University Press 2008) and J e casse de l’eau (Le Pommier, 2008).
Christiana Christopoulou r eceived her D.Phil. in 2008 from the Department of
History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Athens. She has taught
History and Philosophy of Science at the Hellenic Open University and currently
is a member of the Greek Society for the Study and Dissemination of History of
Science and Technology in Greece (“EMDIET)”. She also holds the position of
Managing Director at the Greek publishing house Ekdotike Athenon S.A. She is a
co-editor of Science and Technology, Historical and Historiographical Studies
(Ekdotike Athenon, 2013). She is currently working on the experimental history of
cold in the 17th century.
Guillaume de Syon teaches European history and the history of technology at
Albright College in Reading, PA, USA, and is a Visiting Scholar in History at
Franklin & Marshall College. He is a past contributing editor to the Collected
Papers of Albert Einstein (volumes 8A and 8B, Princeton). His books include
Zeppelin! Germany and the Airship 1900–1939 (Johns Hopkins,) and S cience and
Technology in Modern European Life (Greenwood.) In 2011, he was a visiting
research fellow at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva,
Switzerland. His current research investigates the public understanding of modern
technology as refl ected in media, advertising and popular culture.
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