The Invention That Changed The World On July 17, 1902, Willis Haviland Carrier designed the first modern air-conditioning system, launching an industry that would fundamentally improve the way we live, work and play. The Launch of Carrier Air Conditioning Company In the opening decades of the 20th century, Willis Carrier established Carrier Air Conditioning of America as the worldwide leader, advancing the science and application of air conditioning across multiple industries around the globe. Launched as an independent company in 1915 by Willis Carrier and six other courageous entrepreneurs, Carrier Engineering Corporation provided manufactured weather to over 200 industries with an unmatched promise of "the whole job, the whole responsibility, and a contract for results." The introduction of centrifugal refrigeration by Willis Carrier in 1922 was a landmark event, launching modern air conditioning from the factory floor into movie theaters, office buildings and department stores, and treating the general public to its first taste of cool, clean and comfortable "Manufactured Weather."

Weathermaker to the World Despite the Great Depression, Carrier Corporation never stopped investing in the art and science of air conditioning leading the industry in railroad and marine applications, and pioneering the creation of efficient systems for business and home. The company extended its reach to markets in every corner of the globe, enhancing its unparalleled position as "Weathermakers to the World." Carrier Corporation provided exceptional leadership throughout World War II even as it prepared diligently to meet the needs of a postwar world. In his final decade, Willis Carrier successfully completed one of the most satisfying projects of his storied career before becoming Chairman Emeritus and turning his company over to a new generation of leadership. Growing With the Babyboomers A half-century after his invention of modern air conditioning, Willis Carrier's rich legacy included the creation of a billion-dollar industry and founding of the preeminent global provider of commercial air conditioning.

In the next 25 years, Carrier Corporation grew with the postwar baby boom to become the largest player in the flourishing market for residential comfort air that would change the face of the world. The marriage of United Technologies Corporation with Carrier proved to be a formidable combination, resulting in creation of a Global Manufacturing Platform and market leadership in every region of the world, backed by an unparalleled commitment to environmental sustainability.what are the parts to an ac unit Built on Willis Carrier's extraordinary invention of modern air conditioning and his unyielding commitment to innovation, Carrier today is a lean, focused company meeting the needs of local markets with global resources, and leading the industry with products that delight customers while protecting our fragile envirionment—natural leadership for the 21st century.how much is a central ac unit

In one of his more meteorological moments, science-fiction author Robert Heinlein cheekily explained the difference between climate and weather: "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." Air-conditioning is what humans use to make sure that what we expect and what we get resemble each other.ac/dc power supply manufacturers There were certainly other ways of trying to outsmart the weather before air-conditioning came along, at the dawn of the 20th century. During a third-century summer, the eccentric Roman Emperor Elagabalus sent 1,000 slaves to the mountains to fetch snow for his gardens. And fans — be they electric gadgets or palm leaves wielded by servants — have helped create their share of faux wind. But it was AC that truly signified the onset of man-made weather by both cooling air and controlling humidity. The first system was designed in 1902 by inventor Willis Carrier (the Edison of air-conditioning) as a solution to keep muggy air in a printing plant from wrinkling magazine pages.

He successfully used coils to both cool and remove moisture from the air, and would eventually establish the first mass manufacturing plant for air conditioners. While the first home unit, proportional in size to early computers, was installed in 1914, air conditioners remained too bulky, noisy and full of chemicals to become widespread for several more decades. Advances in technology eventually yielded the more convenient window air conditioner in the late 1930s, though it remained out of reach for most. The general public — those not privy to the few luxurious hotels and cars that used cooling systems early on — often first encountered air-conditioning in movie theaters, which started to widely use the technology in the 1930s. Before the window unit's heyday, Carrier produced a system for theaters that cost between $10,000 and $50,000. It was one of the few things proprietors sprung for during the Great Depression, and theaters were one of the rare places where the hoi polloi could enjoy chilly, artificial air.

In the beginning, as with all new things, air-conditioning was regarded as a luxury, especially for tightfisted bosses who viewed such worker comfort as contradictory to the sweat they were paying for. So in the 1940s and '50s, the air-conditioning industry gave its product a different spin. Keeping employees cool was simply a matter of productivity, and there were numbers to prove it. According to Gail Cooper's Air-Conditioning America, tests of federal employees showed that typists increased their output by 24% when transferred from a regular office to a cooled one. By 1957, the AC's early reputation for making workers lazy had been successfully inverted; Cooper writes of another study showing that, by then, almost 90% of companies cited air-conditioning as the most important factor in office efficiency. America remained at the forefront of AC adoption. In 1947, British scholar S.F. Markham wrote, "The greatest contribution to civilization in this century may well be air-conditioning — and America leads the way."

By the time 1980 rolled around, the U.S. — which then housed only 5% of the world's population — was consuming more air-conditioning than all other countries combined. Essayists lamented people's reliance on the electricity-devouring invention. "It is thus no exaggeration to say that Americans have taken to mechanical cooling avidly and greedily," remarked former TIME writer Frank Trippett in 1979. "Many have become all but addicted." Over the years, air-conditioning has been credited with the survival of institutions and industries: the heat-sensitive world of computer networks; the U.S. federal government, which often had to shut down in swampy Washington, D.C., before the embrace of man-made coolness; But even the cool bliss of AC has raised the temperature of some critics. Environmentalists who are concerned about global warming have long called for cutting back on AC use. "It's just one of those technologies that tends to create the need and desire for even more of it," said Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), in a recent interview.