When you hear the name Albert Einstein, your brain probably goes straight to a chalkboard covered in messy equations or that iconic photo of him sticking his tongue out. Most of us think of him as the "theory guy"—the man who figured out how time and space warp. But honestly? The guy was a tinkerer. Before he was a world-famous celebrity, he spent seven years as a "technical expert" (basically a glorified patent examiner) in a Swiss office. He called it his "worldly cloister." It wasn't just a day job; it got him obsessed with how things actually work in the physical world.
So, when people ask what has albert einstein invented, they usually expect a list of math formulas. But he actually held about 50 patents. He didn't just think about the universe; he tried to fix your kitchen and your closet, too.
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The Refrigerator That Didn't Kill You
Back in the 1920s, refrigerators were literally death traps. They used toxic gases like sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride to keep food cold. If a seal leaked while you were sleeping, you might not wake up. In 1926, Einstein read a news story about a family in Berlin who died because of a leaky fridge. He was horrified. He teamed up with his former student, Leo Szilard, to build something better.
Their big idea was a fridge with no moving parts. No moving parts meant no seals to break and no toxic leaks. They used something called an "absorption" cycle. Basically, it used a heat source (like a small gas flame) to move a mix of ammonia, butane, and water through the system.
It was clever. It was safe. It was also... incredibly loud. The prototype hissed like a possessed radiator. While they eventually sold the patent to Electrolux, the invention of Freon (which was thought to be safe at the time) eventually killed the "Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator" commercially. But here's the kicker: because it doesn't need electricity, engineers today are looking at his 100-year-old designs to create solar-powered coolers for vaccines in places without power grids.
The Automatic Camera (Decades Before its Time)
You probably take your smartphone's "auto-exposure" for granted. You point, you shoot, and the phone does the math. But in 1935, Einstein and his friend Gustav Bucky patented a camera that did this mechanically.
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They called it the "Light Intensity Self-Adjusting Camera." It used a photoelectric cell—the same tech that won Einstein his Nobel Prize—to measure how much light was hitting the lens. That cell would then move a shaft to adjust a set of "screens" (filters) to make sure the photo wasn't blown out or too dark.
It was a clunky, mechanical ancestor to the digital sensors we use today. Most people think Kodak invented the first self-adjusting camera, the Super Six-20, in 1938. Nope. Einstein beat them to the patent office by three years.
The Einstein Blouse: High Fashion?
This is where things get weird. In 1936, the man who supposedly forgot to wear socks received a US patent for a blouse.
It wasn't just a random shirt. It was a highly practical, "adjustable" design. The blouse featured side openings that doubled as armholes and two sets of buttons. The idea was that if you gained or lost weight, you didn't need to buy a new wardrobe—you just adjusted the buttons. It was basically "expandable" clothing long before the era of spandex.
The Invisible Inventions: Lasers and GPS
If we’re being technical about what has albert einstein invented, we have to talk about the stuff he "invented" on paper that later became physical reality.
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- The Laser: In 1917, Einstein proposed something called "stimulated emission." He figured out that if you hit an excited atom with a photon, it would spit out another photon that was an exact twin. It took until 1960 for someone to actually build a laser, but without Einstein’s theory, barcode scanners, fiber optics, and LASIK surgery wouldn't exist.
- GPS: Every time you use Google Maps, you're using Einstein’s brain. Satellites move fast and are further from Earth’s gravity, which makes their clocks tick slightly faster than ours on the ground. Einstein's relativity math is what allows the GPS system to correct that tiny time difference. Without it, your GPS would be off by several miles within a single day.
- Solar Cells: We usually credit him with Relativity, but he actually won his Nobel Prize for explaining the Photoelectric Effect. This is the "invention" of the idea that light can be turned into electricity. Every solar panel on a roof is a direct application of his 1905 paper.
Why He Failed as a "Business" Inventor
Einstein wasn't a great businessman. He was a "cobbler of ideas." He’d get obsessed with a problem—like a noisy pump or a leaky fridge seal—solve it on paper, file the patent, and then wander back to thinking about the curvature of spacetime.
Most of his physical inventions, like a sound reproduction system he worked on with Rudolf Goldschmidt, never made it to the shelves. They were too complex or arrived right as the Great Depression hit.
What You Can Learn from Einstein’s "Failures"
If you're trying to innovate, don't just look at the successful products. Einstein’s fridge failed because of Freon, but now that we know Freon destroys the ozone layer, his "failed" invention is suddenly genius again.
Take these next steps to apply "Einstein Thinking" to your own projects:
- Solve for "No Moving Parts": Whether you're building software or a physical tool, Einstein knew that moving parts are where things break. Look for ways to simplify your process by removing the "gears."
- Cross-Pollinate: Einstein used his knowledge of light (physics) to help design a better camera (technology). Don't stay in your lane.
- Patent the "Why," not just the "How": Einstein’s patents were often rejected or ignored because they were too far ahead of the manufacturing capabilities of the time. If you have a great idea that can't be built yet, document the theory anyway.
Honestly, the guy was just curious. He didn't care if he was making a blouse or explaining the Big Bang. To him, it was all the same puzzle.
To truly dig deeper into Einstein's physical legacy, you can actually look up his original filings at the US Patent and Trademark Office, specifically U.S. Patent 1,781,541 for the refrigeration system. Seeing the hand-drawn diagrams from the world's greatest genius reminds you that even he had to worry about things like pipes and valves.