I’m writing this column on the birthday of one of the most unusual and inspiring characters in engineering history. She was born in a Scottish castle near Perth into a family of the landed gentry and was named after her godmother who was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Despite her […]

One of my favorite breakfasts is a bowl of flakes with desiccated berries—usuallystrawberries, raspberries and cherries. I love the way that the berries look all shrivelled but are still bursting with flavor when the milk soaks into them. This is the result of a process called lyophilization, more commonly known as “freeze-drying.” Strictly speaking the […]

I made a terrible blunder in a recent column (June 2018) when I referred to the Scotsborn refrigeration pioneer James Harrison as “William.” There’s really no excuse and I should know better. Harrison was born in Scotland in 1816, in the village of Bonhill, which is about 20 miles from my home, although he emigrated […]

At the recent Herrick Conferences at Purdue University, the refrigeration short course, “The Transition to Flammable Refrigerants,” reviewed some recent research work on flammable refrigerants, including several ASHRAE-funded projects. The quality of work being conducted in this area is exceptional, but I was left with a growing feeling of dissatisfaction with the underlying foundation of […]

When I was a young engineer, not long started in the refrigeration industry, I received a memo from my boss. It said “You are hereby authorized to make two big mistakes per year, otherwise you will never learn anything.” He told me the story of an old design engineer who had visited a site just […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about innovation recently. More specifically what is it, why do we need to do it and what stops us from doing it more? My conclusion, regarding the refrigeration industry, is that there are incremental improvements to products and systems happening all the time but these do not change the fundamental […]

For people, like me, of a certain age the phrase “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” conjures up a level of excitement and anticipation of the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its intrepid commander, James Tiberius Kirk. In the refrigeration world, however, we ought to celebrate another Kirk with a funny […]

It’s very easy to be confused by some of the concepts of thermodynamics. Most people have an innate understanding of temperature, although some folks sometimes find it difficult to work out whether –18° is higher or lower than –20°. Heat is a little bit more confusing. A typical question would be “how can something contain […]

We are surrounded by a chemical so commonplace that we regularly make the mistake of presuming that its behavior is normal and that other chemicals behave in the same way. This can sometimes lead to embarrassing mistakes and even catastrophic failures, so it is good to step back and take stock of the weirdness. The […]

I was reminded recently why engineering is such a fantastic career and being an engineer is the best job I can imagine. When you boil it right down, it is really all about solving problems for people. Some other professions can, I suppose, make the same claim: doctors for example. But they have to deal […]