Steam_Engine

Steam Engine Steam Engine Fitzgerald Thomas Newcomen was not the first person to be fascinated by boiling water and by the steam that came from the spout of a kettle. People had watched this happen for centuries, and occasionally some had tried to put this steam to use. Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, had made a little steam engine in about the 1st century A.D. But at that time, there was nothing for the engine to do. There was so much slave labor that there was little use for laborsaving machinery. Hero’s invention was regarded as just an amusing toy. Century’s later, other people made steam type engines. An Italian, Giovanni Branca, an Englishman, Edward Somerset, and a Frenchman, Denis Papin, had all devised steam engines, but none were used very successfully. When Thomas Newcomen was a boy he dreamed of succeeding where the others had failed. When he grew up, Newcomen was able to make that dream come true. In 1720 he invented an “atmospheric” engine that steam, engine, cylinder, water, piston, newcomen’s, newcomen, engines, vacuum, top, time, thomas, power, people, out, much, made, little, later, forced, first, bottom, atmospheric, years, worked, weights, watt, watched, very, using, useful, upright, type, true, tried