Whether by choice or necessity, many Americans are moving to cities and living small in neighborhoods like downtown L.A. or Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. Home appliance designers are working hard to make sure modernity can move in with them.
Few of us think of how a refrigerator works when we reach inside for a can of cold soda. When we do, our memory might bring up compressors pumping chemical coolants. But Venkat Venkatakrishnan and his team are thinking about magnets. Their new magnetic cooling technology could soon upend the very foundation of modern refrigeration.