What seemed to finalize the impact of the Watt engine on the Industrial Revolution was his creation of the double-acting engine. Doubling the efficiency, it condensed steam both above and below ...

Watt refined the engine until it was efficient enough to run all sorts of machinery. Thanks to Watt, steam powered the first railway engine in 1804. He died in 1819 and the electrical unit, the ...

This article was originally published with the title “ Centenary of the Steam Engine—James Watt ” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 20 No. 19 (May 1869), p. 297 doi:10.1038 ...

Over at mises.org, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine challenge the standard story of James Watt and the steam engine. Their conclusion: In most histories, James Watt is a heroic inventor ...

Picture the inventor toiling in splendid isolation. From such lonely genius spring the technologies that change our lives: from Gutenberg, the printing press; from James Watt, the steam engine ...

In 1712 Thomas Newcomen built an engine that made use of a piston, and, beginning in 1769, James Watt improved on steam engine design with a string of patents that included innovations such as ...

Watt's genius was not limited to his steam engine: he invented a raft of other things, including a centrifugal governor to limit the speed of his engines, sun-and-planet gears as an alternative to ...

Then in 1769 James Watt greatly improved it, making the engine four times as fuel-efficient. In 1781 he patented the rotary steam engine, which could turn a shaft and thus power machinery.

Fifty years before James Watt came on the scene Thomas Newcomen built practical steam engines to pump water out of mines. What is known of these engines and how did they influence later ones ...

An engine indicator is an instrument for graphically recording the cylinder pressure versus piston displacement through an engine stroke cycle. Engineers use the resulting diagram to check the design ...

The model will be on display at the University Library from June 6 as part of a public exhibition exploring Watt’s life.