A double acting steam engine from the 1790s

Steam Engine's influences | protoype | Engine parts | James Watt | critique | Transportation

This device was used to increase the efficiency of a single cylinder by adding an extra cylinder to bleed off the exhause heat from the main cylinder after it expanded, and was used to start the main drive shaft.

• The steam engine dates to the 1690s, was perfected in the 1720s and improved by James Watt to increase its power output and versatility in 1776.

• The mechanical age, that had begun with organs and clocks, was accelerated in the widespread application of this technology.
• There are aspects of this steam engine related tool complex that led directly to automation.

Automatic devices had been used very early in pipe organs, but the steam engine had a far wider application to other inventions and repleaced the clock, pipe organ and even gunpowder as a trigger of the modern age.

So important was the steam engine that many historians call its invention and wider application: the industrial revolution. It is however a key element in the mechanical transformation of tools, organization and cultural values.

See industrial revolution.

Newcomen engine.

Technology disturbs | The Order of Things | Pacey Chapters | Pursell Chapters | Time Lords

Pacey | Pursell defines technology | Postman's thesis | Kaku

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