McGuire’s Law

Yesterday I began sharing with you the inventions I’ve been hinting at the past couple of weeks. Yesterday it was the Printing Press. Today, it’s the Steam Engine.

Quotes from the forthcoming book The Power of Mobility. Due out this September.

“In 1764, Watt was asked to repair a Newcomen steam engine owned by the University of Glasgow. In working on it, he realized there were a number of ways in which the design could be improved. The most significant of these improvements was the use of a separate chamber for condensing the steam back to liquid at the end of each cycle. This allowed more of the energy in the main cylinder to be retained, greatly improving the overall efficiency of the engine.”

“By 1800, cotton mills were the chief users as the steam engine provided reliable and continuous power for spinning. … Cotton was insignificant as an export in 1750, but by 1810 had become 39 percent of exports by value.”

“Well, this simple truth [the 2nd law of thermodynamics] that heat flows to where there isn’t heat is what made the steam engine work and create motive power. The steam engine came onto the scene at the precise moment when mines and factories were ramping up their need for motive power. The dramatic increase in power produced by the steam engine then drove even greater productivity in industry, radically changing the shape of business and society.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 4:37 am and is filed under Book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.