Ice machines work to produce a batch of ice through a process known as adiabatic cooling. When a highly pressurized substance expands, the change in pressure causes the substance to cool quickly. It's the same reason why the pressurized air you use to clean your keyboard becomes cold when you hold down the trigger.

It is made by filling metal cans with water and lowering them into a bath of brine (usually sodium or calcium chloride) refrigerated to well below the freezing point of water. The water freezes in the cans and the ice blocks are removed from the cans after several hours of freezing.

It's America's first public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration. William Cullen had demonstrated the principle of artificial refrigeration in a University of Glasgow laboratory in 1748, by allowing ethyl ether to boil into a vacuum

John Gorrie invented the first ice-making machine in 1845. Much like Frederick Tudor a few decades before, no one took the idea seriously. John even made a successful prototype to show off what his invention could achieve, but to no avail

Ice makers: Ice maker energy use is around 350 kilowatt hours (kWh) in a month—at a typical rate of $0.06 per kWh, that would cost around $21 a month.