Abstract
Modern inventions normally build upon advances in science and engineering that have gone on before. Such was the case in 1859 when George B. Simpson was granted a patent for an ‘Improved Electrical Heating Apparatus’ (Simpson). (See Figure 1.) The ‘electro-heater’ consisted of a long coil of ‘platina’ wire laid in a serpentine groove cut into ‘common soapstone’. When electricity was applied from ‘any well-known electric or galvanic battery now in use’, the wire glowed and radiated heat. The apparatus worked by ‘generating heat sufficient to warm rooms, boil water, cook victuals, &c., by passing currents of electricity over the combined arrangement over coils of platina or other metallic wire properly encased in metallic tubes or open vessels insulated with any of the well-known substances non-conducting of electricity’. What Simpson described was a perfect description of the electric hobs in the cooktop I purchased 134 years later.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Dublin Gastronomy Symposium |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Externally published | Yes |