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His contrivance is always cited as the first example of jet propulsion. The first documented effort to exploit this phenomenon to create mechanical motion is generally credited to Hero of Alexandria, who invented his aeolipile in the first century. Man's fascination with the fact that water can be converted to a vapor by the application of heat probably dates to prehistoric times. Nonetheless, it was Newcomen who first made the steam engine a reality. The encyclopedia gives Watt nearly two pages, while Newcomen rates only a brief paragraph. The extent to which Watt's reputation has eclipsed Newcomen's can be judged by comparing their entries in the Britannica. The contribution of Thomas Newcomen, who died a few years before Watt was born, is usually overlooked. The conventional wisdom is that James Watt invented the steam engine. Thus, we never hear about the designers of sailing ships who had made an extensive study of aerodynamics before the Wright brothers, or the number of engineers who had speculated on jet propulsion before Whittle. It frequently happens that the individual getting the credit for an invention is not the real innovator, but rather the person who was most successful in reducing an idea to practice. Copyright 2003 American Society of Mechanical Engineers This article contains material published in Mechanical Engineering Magazine Dec. This article was initially written by Robert Woods, ASME Fellow. In the History of Transportation, Watt’s steam engine has to be seen as a milestone beyond compare.Fairbottom Bobs, a Newcomen steam engine recovered from a mine site in Lancashire, England, was acquired in 1930 by the Henry Ford Museum, which says it is possibly the oldest extant steam engine in the world. Soon, even ocean crossings took significantly less time. Journeys that had taken days or months could be made in hours or days. Rivers where mainly downstream shipping had been common became two-way transportation highways, and rails began to crisscross the land. Not only could goods and passengers travel with unprecedented speed, mail and news also traveled faster, and factories and mills could operate away from sources of water or wind power for the first time. Another American inventor also came in with an early design that used steam to force a jet of water out the back as a means of propulsion, but boats and trains powered by Watt’s engine proved to be the best. D’Abbans working boat predates Fulton’s, but it had a tendency to break down often. Irregardless of who gets the credit, new uses of the steam engine changed the world in the early 1800’s. Robert Fulton, an American, usually gets credit for building the first practical steamboat although a Frenchman, the Marquis de Jouffroy d’Abbans, actually built the first working steamboat in 1783, and Fulton’s was merely the first to run a regular commercial route. Horses and sails which had been used for thousands of years were virtually replaced almost overnight (historically speaking) by steam locomotives, steamboats, and steamships. It is a spur to the industrial revolution, and is the key to the transportation revolution. James Watt’s steam engine was so good that it was used basically unmodified for nearly a century. He coined the term horsepower as a way to explain how much work his engine could do. The Watt as a unit of power is named after him.
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The real secret of his innovation was the concept of latent heat which was discovered by another, but which found practical application in Watt’s use of compressed steam to make the heating of water six times more efficient. By making a few innovations, over a period of years he made a steam engine that was a practical source of power and went down in history as the inventor of the steam engine. It fascinated him, but was too slow and cumbersome to have much practical use. In this capacity he had a chance to work on a broken Newcomen engine. In the 1750’s Watt became an instrument maker affiliated with the University at Glasgow. When James Watt was born the horse was still the chief source of power for transportation and many other forms of work. This new invention would replace horses with horsepower. The Steam Engine A Revolutionary Power Source. Although various steam motion devices had been known since the time of Hero of Alexandria.