AKA Karl Paul Gottfried von Linde

Born: 11-Jun-1842
Birthplace: Berndorf, Germany
Died: 16-Nov-1934
Location of death: Munich, Germany
Cause of death: Natural Causes
Remains: Buried, Waldfriedhof, Munich, Germany

Gender: Male
Religion: Lutheran
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Engineer, Inventor

Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Inventor of refrigeration

German engineer and inventor Karl von Linde studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where his teachers included Rudolf Clausius and Franz Reuleaux, but he was expelled for participation in student protests, and never earned a degree. He worked for several years as an engineer before joining the faculty at Berlin Technical University, and while teaching there he was approached by a friend who worked at a brewery, who asked Linde to develop a reliable system of refrigeration. This became the work that dominated the rest of Linde's life, and secured his place in the history of scientific achievement.

Linde invented the first portable compressor refrigerator, a methyl ether refrigeration machine, in 1873, and three years later he designed a more reliable system, the Kühlschrank, which was the first practical ammonia-compressor driven refrigerator. In 1878 he established the Society for Lindes Ice Machines, now the Linde AG conglomerate, which was and remains a leading manufacturer of refrigerators on the European continent. In 1894 he developed a process using the Joule-Thomson effect to liquefy gases, and in the following year he used this technique to produce liquid air in mass quantities. In 1902 he and his staff at Linde AG developed a system that separates liquid oxygen and nitrogen from liquefied air. He died in 1934, but Linde's vapor-compression refrigeration system and liquefaction and separation techniques still form the basis for modern industrial refrigeration systems.

Father: Friedrich (Lutheran minister)
Wife: Helene Grimm (m. 17-Sep-1865 until his death)
Daughter: Maria (b. 1867, d. 1954)
Daughter: Franziska (b. 1868, d. 1966)
Son: Friedrich (Linde executive, b. 1870, d. 1965)
Daughter: Anna (b. 1873, d. 1949)
Son: Richard (Linde executive, b. 1876, d. 1961)
Daughter: Elisabeth (b. 1880, d. 1959)

    High School: Kempten Gymnasium, Kempten, Germany (1861)
    University: BS Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (attended 1861-64)
    Teacher: Assoc. Prof. of Engineering, Berlin Technical University (1868-72)
    Professor: Mechanical Engineering, Berlin Technical University (1872-78)

    Linde AG Founder (1878)
    Expelled from School
    Bavarian Ancestry
    German Ancestry

Official Website:
http://www.linde.com/

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