21st September 1842

Birth of the inventor of the vacuum flask

Kincardine-born chemist, James Dewar, needed to keep gasses cold so he could study them in their liquid form. He achieved this when he came up with the concept of the vacuum flask, in which the storage chamber sits within a sealed outer sleeve, from which all the air has been removed. With no air between the inner and outer layers there’s no way for external temperatures to be transmitted between them and affect the temperature of the stored liquid.

The flask was later popularised as a household item, particularly beloved of motorists and explorers who used it not to keep gasses cold, but hot drinks hot.