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Carl Linde and His Relationship with Georges Claude: The Cooperation Between Two Independent Inventors in Cryogenics and Its Side Effects

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History of Artificial Cold, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Issues

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 299))

Abstract

Carl von Linde (1842–1934) and the 28-year-younger Georges Claude (1870–1960) were the two most important applied scientist-inventors and entrepreneurs in cryogenics of the twentieth century. Both can be seen as “independent inventors”, as described by the eminent American technology historian Thomas Hughes. However, both would have preferred to be seen as scientists. Georges Claude, although he was referred to as the “French Edison” in the 1920s, sneered about the most famous of all independent inventors, Thomas Edison. He laughed about American industrialists, who handed large sums over to the inventor.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The files of Georges Claude remain in the family. The recent biography on Claude made extensive use of these files. The files of Carl Linde can be found in the Linde Company archives in Munich. This article is based on my earlier work on the history of Linde and the Linde Company. Thus, I am more familiar with Linde’s experimental work than with Claude’s. For archival details on Linde, see Dienel (1995) and Dienel (2004).

  2. 2.

    This book was written by a former head of communication of Air Liquide. There was no support of the company, which still has not found a way to integrate its founder’s biography into its own history.

  3. 3.

    The structures and challenges of bi-national cooperation of technology companies have been described nicely by Hans Braun (1991).

  4. 4.

    The regenerative method had a long theoretical tradition in refrigeration technology. It was not applied. Regenerativkaltluftmachine, VDI-Zeitschrift 2 (1858), 287.

  5. 5.

    The rectification method was different from distillation in that a certain part of the distillant flows back through the vaporising liquid. In a special rectification column, different equilibria between the two involved elements are achieved on individual levels.

  6. 6.

    This was similar to the working relationships between Elmar Sperry and Prof. William Anthony (Cornell), Rudolf Diesel and Carl Linde, Charles Holl and Prof. Frank F. Jewett (Oberlin College), and Nicolas Tesla and a professor at the TH Graz. Edison employed ‘a number of chemists who had received their doctorate degrees in Germany’.

  7. 7.

    An exception is Hausen 1937, because he had to counter American publications.

  8. 8.

    Towards the end of his life, Hirsch used his earnings to support early Jewish settlements in Palestine.

  9. 9.

    Correspondence between Linde, Brush and Javal. Seven letters from 20.11.1907 to 21.1.1908. In: The Charles F. Brush Collection. Case Western Reserve University, Special Collections. Box 3, Letterbook 1902–1910.

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  1. Center for Technology and Society, Technische Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Hans-Liudger Dienel

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  1. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Kostas Gavroglu

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Dienel, HL. (2014). Carl Linde and His Relationship with Georges Claude: The Cooperation Between Two Independent Inventors in Cryogenics and Its Side Effects. In: Gavroglu, K. (eds) History of Artificial Cold, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Issues. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 299. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7199-4_9

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