The German scientist Albert Einstein, who came up with the theory of relativity, was also responsible for a less celebrated discovery – a fridge.
About 78 years after he invented it, a group of German physicists are building Einstein’s unique alcohol-powered fridge for the first time.
Historians say the fridge reveals that Einstein was not merely a theoretician but also a down-to-earth, practical inventor.
Jurgen Renn, director of the Max-Planck-Institut in Berlin, said: “He came from a merchant family, he had to worry about money, and he was supposed to take over the family business.”
Einstein wrote his theory of relativity in 1905, while working in a Swiss patent office. It was in 1926, when he was living in Berlin and had won the Nobel Prize, that he invented his model after reading a news report of an ordinary fridge that poisoned a sleeping family when its pump had leaked sulphur dioxide.
With a fellow scientist, Leonard Szilard, Einstein built a fridge that used alcohol – a harmless gas. Although Einstein patented his design, new technology meant his model never went into production. The only prototype ever built vanished and only a handful of photos exist.
Peter Galison, a historian, told the German science magazine ZeitWissen: “As a young man Einstein corresponded with friends about helicopters and measuring equipment, tinkered with small experiments, and filed patents.”
Germany is planning a double Einstein celebration next year to mark the centenary of his theory of relativity and the 50th anniversary of his death.