In order to commemorate the outstanding contributions made by someone, people often make up some popular storylines that are widely circulated in the world. For example, Newton sat under an apple tree and was hit by a falling apple, thus discovering the law of gravitation, and then the story of Watt and the steam engine. In the early eighteenth century, in a poor family in Scotland, a little boy was staring at a boiling kettle. He looked at the smoke-like water vapor coming out of the spout and the opening of the lid, and watched the lid being lifted up and down from time to time, making a sound of "Gedang, Gedang", as if he had lost consciousness. He stood by the fire for more than an hour, but he refused to reach out and move the kettle. When his aunt came in and saw such a situation, she couldn't help but be amazed, pointing at the kettle and shouting, "Didn't you see it?" Lazy kid! ”
The story is widely circulated, and the little boy in the story is naturally Watt. It is said that it was inspired by the lid of the teapot that Watt later developed the inspiration for inventing the steam engine. But it is undoubtedly a little reluctant to cause a revolutionary sensation like this because of a simple thing, whether it is Newton or Watt's success is inseparable from the accumulation of predecessors. Newton also said: "If I see farther than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants."
Watt's predecessors are now generally believed to have invented the steam engine, which led to the British Industrial Revolution, and the steam engine did mark the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but it was not Watt who invented it. As early as the 1st century AD, the Egyptian Alexandria scholar Hilo used the steam jet recoil force to make a steam rotation device. In 1680, the French physicist Ba invented the pressure cooker, and 10 years later he creatively designed the earliest cylinder, the piston device. In 1698, the British engineer Thomas Severi built the first practical pistonless mine pumping steam engine. In 1712, the English forge Thomas Nucomen combined the advantages of Papen's cylinder piston and Severi's vacuum condenser device to develop a more effective atmospheric piston steam engine. Later, British engineer Smiton made improvements to Newcorgate's atmospheric piston steam engine, nearly doubling its efficiency.
Newcastle steam engine Watt had a keen interest in steam engines from an early age James Watt was a key figure in the fundamental reform of the Newcomen steam engine. James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Scotland. He studied at the grammar school in the area with excellent grades, but dropped out of school due to poor health. After returning home, he studied techniques in his father's factory, where he acquired a wealth of techniques in carpentry, metal smelting and processing, and repair of mechanical manufacturing instruments. In 1775, he went to London to study instrument making, and later to the University of Glasgow as an instrument repairer, responsible for the repair and storage of teaching aids. There, he met a model of the Newcomen steam engine, as well as the thermodynamicist Lake and the later famous physicist John Robinson. The three men chatted speculatively, and they often worked together on the problem of improving the steam engine. Watt admired Nucomen's atmospheric piston steam engine, but he also found that the invention was so flawed that it remained in the basic stage, which not only consumed a lot of energy and had low work efficiency, but also when the steam engine was running hot and cold, and the mechanical work could not last. To solve these problems, Watt conducted a series of simple and interesting experiments using simple utensils such as glass bottles and bamboo tubes, studying the relationship between the density, pressure and temperature of steam. He also took a closer look at how the steam engine made the most of the heat and achieved breakthrough results.
In 1769, Watt made a single-acting steam engine that consumed only a quarter of the coal consumption of the Newcomen steam engine, which was a very huge advance, but Watt was not satisfied. After obtaining the patent, he worked on a new topic with the support of entrepreneur Bolton: transforming the mechanical movement of straight lines into circular rotational motion. In this regard, he famously proposed the "planetary gear mechanism". The following year, Watt built a compound steam engine. In 1784, the "parallel linkage mechanism" made the steam engine more industrially practical. By 1790, Watt had completed the invention of the cylinder, which was the final step in the entire steam engine improvement process. This improved steam engine was twice as efficient as the Nucomen machine, but the coal consumption was reduced by 75%, and it was safe and reliable, fast, and almost impossible to pick at the time, known as the "universal steam engine". The successful improvement of the watt steam engine that opened the industrialization revolution has injected new vitality into the industrial world and changed the face of human production. It quickly became a power machinery suitable for all industrial sectors, and was widely used in various industries such as textile, mining, metallurgy, papermaking, and machinery. After entering the 19th century, due to the advance in the application of metal materials, the steam engine continued to become "small" and was finally widely used in transportation. The whole world has set off an economic revolution, and the social productive forces have developed amazingly. In view of james watt's special contribution, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1785, a Doctor of Laws from the University of Glasgow in 1804, and a "Foreign President of The French Scientists" by France in 1814. After Watt's death, the famous Westminster Abbey in The United Kingdom erected a statue of him. In his honor, people also use "watts" as a unit of power calculation. Watt's success is the result of absorbing the knowledge and experience accumulated by mankind over thousands of years. Personal efforts to explore, coupled with the results already achieved by previous generations, are the key to the invention of science and technology, and if Hargreaves's invention of the Jenny spinning machine is a sign of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, then Watt's improved steam engine is the symbol of the Industrial Revolution.
Watt's steam engine can completely replace water and animal power, allowing mankind to find a new source of power, and thus opening up a new era of mechanized large-scale production. Its successful application has changed the face of the whole society and the times, sounded the whistle of industrialization in Western society, and also enabled the East and the West, which were originally at the same level of development, to embark on different paths of economic and social development, and have gradually drifted away since then.
References: "Exploration of World History", "Analysis of the Social Perspective of Watt's Steam Engine Technology Innovation"