"In 1877, university professor Carl von Linde obtained a patent for his refrigerator from the Imperial Patent Office- a patent for something that was not merely an invention, but the result of serious research in the basic laws of physics. Linde went on to found Linde Company, one of the biggest German Gas and Engineering companies which became one of the models for science-based industries. Today, the Linde Group, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, is a global technology company dedicated to material handling, gas and engineering. This book examines the history of this company in the context of the history of technology in industry."--BOOK JACKET.