Who invented the refrigerator?

The first form of artificial refrigeration was invented by William Cullen, a Scottish scientist. Cullen showed how the rapid heating of liquid to a gas can result in cooling. This is the principle behind refrigeration that still remains today.

He was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (1746–47), President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1773–1775) and First Physician to the King in Scotland (1773–1790). He also assisted in obtaining a royal charter for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, resulting in the formation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783.

Cullen was a beloved teacher, and many of his students became influential figures. He kept in contact with many of his students, including Benjamin Rush, a central figure in the founding of the United States of America; John Morgan, who founded the first medical school in the American colonies, the Medical School at the College of Philadelphia; William Withering, the discoverer of digitalis; Sir Gilbert Blane, medical reformer of the Royal Navy; and John Coakley Lettsom, the philanthropist and founder of the Medical Society of London

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18 Comments

Richard D. Boyle

Terrible Q and A. This is like asking who invented the first airplane and answering with who came up with the first theory of flight…but never followed through with it.

✨KRISTA✨

Very poorly worded question title. I don't believe the answer this author plugged in is the 💯 correct answer. The question needs to be more specific. Refrigeration has been around for thousands of years. Rudimentary, but still ancient people knew food needed to be preserved, even if it was keeping the food in cold ❄️ rivers or building an ice house 🆒~

Carolanne Burns

I knew it wasn’t one of those choices.

Chris Brown

I didn't think it was any of those you have listed and guessed at what you had, finding I had picked what you had as being correct. I then had a search and found that it was actually in 1913. American Fred W. Wolf invented the first home electric refrigerator, which featured a refrigeration unit on top of an icebox. Mass production of domestic refrigerators began in 1918 when William C. Durant introduced the first home refrigerator with a self-contained compressor.

Susan Lake-Harris

I'm not sure he actually made some kind of working model... if he did, and did it before the others, then I suppose he was the inventor. It looks as though lots of people have done some checking and it seems he may have provided the principle that got someone else thinking and inventing...

Karen Copus

Actually.... Fred Wolfe

Jeff Bardsley

Was it not Carl Bon Linde

John McLardie

Cullen invented and demonstrated 'artificial' refrigeration but it had no practical purpose. More research needed by the question-setter.

Graham Diane Herbert

Honestly who checks these Q and A's

teacherchicky

Even though I got it correct, I wish to argue that the answer to the question that's asked would be Fred Wolf but you need to be more specific in your question if you expect us to answer it!

Mary Gini Fudge Chapman

Got that right Kareem - - too many involved with "inventing" the refrigerator. The answer includes the phrase ARTIFICIAL REFRIGERATION which was not mentioned in the question.