As I write this, I am reading a Reuters report saying that Britain could have the highest temperatures in recorded history later this week – possibly up to 39 degrees Celsius as warm air from Continental Europe moves north. Phew. Whatever the cause for a run of hot summers in recent years, there is no doubt now that working in Britain during the summer months would be a lot less pleasant were it not for the invention of air-conditioning. Mind you, it seems that Britain still has not quite figured out how to manage AC systems properly. In my time working in London, the systems have been frequently unreliable although my modern office in London’s Docklands is excellent. London’s Tube does not have it (the excuse I hear is that the tunnels are not large enough for the technology to work efficiently). Even so, the use of air conditioning seems to be spreading, although I don’t have reliable statistics to hand but just personal experience over a decade or more of going to different offices in town. Here is a story about how a hospital in Belfast is supposedly the first major building to use AC. (Belfast?)
In the United States, of course, air-conditioning has been around for more than 100 years. Here is a nice appreciation of the man who introduced the system that is the foundation for the kind of mass-AC we still use today. Think about it: large parts of the world, such as the American south, could not function in the way they do without it. The business centres of Atlanta, Houston or Los Angeles would be cauldrons of heat and unbearable humidity. Hong Kong or Singapore without AC? Forget it.
The ability of certain cities to operate all-year-round without interruption is not an unmitigated good, however. Air-conditioning has meant that Washington DC and its political denizens can function in the swamps of the Potomac even in the most oppressive months. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the Founding Fathers actually chose the spot precisely because politicians could not and would not want to make a nuisance of themselves all year round but would only go to Washington in the cool and temperate months. For the hot months, the pols would stay on their estates and offices. I may be wrong of course, but it is a nice idea: locate your state capitals, if you have to have one at all, in a place that no sane person would want to stay in for more than a few months. (Another way is to put politicians in prisons and only let them out once a week, but I fear there are possible problems with that idea).
The life before AC also partly explains things like the London “Season” of rich folk leaving their town houses in the capital and cavorting in the countryside, yacht-racing or lounging in casinos in Biarritz and Monte Carlo. It just got too hot for our frock-coated Victorian forbears to stay in London, particularly when the pollution in the Thames and in the streets made the place stink to high heaven. So perhaps if AC had existed 200 years ago, the social lives, and hence some of the sporting traditions of the English summer, might have been a lot different.
Right, time for a cold beer from the fridge.
Here in the American southeast, for every degree the temperature outside goes up, cinemas and restaurants turn the a/c temperature down a degree. Going from outside to inside and v.v. can feel almost like a physical blow. That’s why many of us carry sweaters everywhere this time of year.
What’s all the fuss about? Everywhere I go I hear people talking about how hot it is. Frankly I’ve never felt better. All anyone has to do is follow my example: get in your gas-guzzling BMW and switch the good ol’ A/C on. 500 miles in the last couple of days up and down the M1 and M11 and it’s only Tuesday. At this rate I’ll have a couple of Pacific islands under water by the end of the week.
Why can’t they use the old measurements -what the hell is 39 degrees in real money?
niconoclast: about 92+ degrees.
Pete_London: yes, very practical suggestion. Not!
Well, I can’t think of any.
And 39°C = 102.2°F.
Sure i read somewhere that cheap A/C plant and power was the singlemost important factor in the dramatic US population shift to the Southern states over the last 20 years.
Another interesting point is changing social trends re the acceptability of persipiration and its allied odours. My father in law (who looks the spit of Yoda) has a bath once a week and doesn’t use deo. Not unusual in this rather unwholesome practice for his birth decade, either.
Having moved form mobile units round the house here near Florence to a fixed system I can attest it is indeed the way forward.
Sure i read somewhere that cheap A/C plant and power was the singlemost important factor in the dramatic US population shift to the Southern states over the last 20 years.
Another interesting point is changing social trends re the acceptability of persipiration and its allied odours. My father in law (who looks the spit of Yoda) has a bath once a week and doesn’t use deo. Not unusual in this rather unwholesome practice for his birth decade, either.
Having moved form mobile units round the house here near Florence to a fixed system I can attest it is indeed the way forward.
Baths once a week he does?
Well we dont have A/C at RAB Towers yet, but a nice breeze is blowing in through the window. Feels like a thunderstorm coming, so it should cool down tonight.
Having been in Egypt in May when it got to 100F + by 10oclock in the morning, I am now officially immune to hot weather. Pushing the door open from the A/C interior of our Nile cruise ship to the sun deck was like getting hit by a stun grenade.
And for chrissakes let’s lose Centigrade! 39 is an inside leg measurement, not a temperature!
let’s lose Centigrade!
We did, did’t we. It’s Celcius 😉
Farenheit? It’s what you’re used to – I suppose. As a compromise lets all agree on Kevlin… 312K in London? Bloody ‘ell.
So whats the difference between Centigrade and Celcius?(I would have used it the first time round, but it didn’t look right spelt like that.Matter of fact it still doesn’t).
I want my measurements in human terms that we all understand. When someone says a yard or a mile, I get a pretty good picture in my head of what is being described.
Next our height will be routinely described as 1 metre 87cm instead of 6 foot two. Mark my words!!
The London Underground is designed to be ventilated and cooled by the trains working like pistons as they move through the tunnels.
My uncle was in London during WW2 and he said that many people would rather take their chances in the streets than suffer the heat and stink of the subterranean sheltering hordes once the trains had stopped moving for the night.
Air conditioning causes obesity:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9416-aircon-and-lack-of-sleep-promote-obesity.html
Surprise, surprise, it is mostly the southern states where obesity reigns:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/
Royal Victoria Hospital has aircon? And they were the first…must be broken down due to obsolescence. It is blood warm at all times of the year.
So whats the difference between Centigrade and Celcius?(I would have used it the first time round, but it didn’t look right spelt like that.Matter of fact it still doesn’t).
None, though I belive it’s Celsius rather than Celcius.
So whats the difference between Centigrade and Celcius?(I would have used it the first time round, but it didn’t look right spelt like that.Matter of fact it still doesn’t).
None, though I belive it’s Celsius rather than Celcius.
They’re the same increment, it’s just I believe the that the SI unit is now called Celcius.
When someone says a yard or a mile, I get a pretty good picture in my head of what is being described.
Next our height will be routinely described as 1 metre 87cm instead of 6 foot two. Mark my words!!
The thing is these aren’t really “human” measures, they’re made up too. I was brought up in Imperial measures but had to train myself in metric in order to work sensibly as an engineer. It took a little work but I can now visualise measures in both systems and have a bunch of simple rules of thumb.
I certainly don’t find, and never have done, imperial/english temperatures to be remotely sensible. I can visualise that 0C is the freezing point of water, and I can visualise that 100C is where water boils. 32F and 212F just make no sense.
Likewise you knowing that 70F is nice, 80F is hot, and 90F is way too hot isn’t much different to knowing that 20 is nice, 30 is hot and 35+ is too way too hot.
My wife is South African and was brought up completely on metric and didn’t properly encounter english measures until we moved to the US. She hated it, she couldn’t work out what any of the measures were, especially temperature. She understands what her height is in metres, just as I do in feet and inches, and she can’t visualise a stone.
Um Davion Luv, who do you think made up these “Human” measures, and how and why?
A yard of cloth was measured from the tip of the nose to your outstreached hand. Inexact obviously, but human. It averaged out in the long run. A good tip in a Medieval marketplace though, was to buy cloth from tall people, not short Welsh people.
We may be full of flannel- but you wont be!
PS a Curse upon Napoleon and all his meddling… for it was he….