Task: Steam engine
What was life like before the invention?
Life was very different before the steam engine was invented.
Before the invention people used three ways to get power: wind, animals and water. Wind powered propellers were used to get power, but it wasn’t really effective if it wasn’t on a flat plain. Animals were effective for minor things such as using two horses to move a wagon somewhere, but If you needed two hundred horses to turn the machinery in a factory, then that would be a problem. Water was the most promising source to produce power before steam engines were invented. For water, people would find a place where there was a stream of water, then build a water wheel to direct the water and Voila that would create you power. …show more content…
This invention allowed machine powered production and it even made the idea of factory life possible.
What I see in this picture is that, the steam engine is slowly pumping out steam, which flows into the piston that is slowly creating a vacuum, giving power to the machine to help it pump out water.
The source is called “Diagrammatic view of Newcomen’s Atmospheric or fire engine”.
I obtained this picture from this website http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/honors/Newcomen.htm, which does not state who created this picture. This picture was produced in 1712.
This picture is a secondary source because no one has claimed that the picture was theirs, and if they did then it either had to be Thomas Newcomen himself or one of his helpers to make this a primary source.
Context:
When this invention was created, Newcomen’s engine was used in the draining of mines and in raising water to power waterwheels.
Though his first invention the "fire engine" was not very effective because it could not work beyond a depth of thirty feet. He then later on fixed up this problem by improving his previous invention into a working beam engine.
What was life like before the invention?
Life was very different before the steam engine was invented.
Before the invention people used three ways to get power: wind, animals and water. Wind powered propellers were used to get power, but it wasn’t really effective if it wasn’t on a flat plain. Animals were effective for minor things such as using two horses to move a wagon somewhere, but If you needed two hundred horses to turn the machinery in a factory, then that would be a problem. Water was the most promising source to produce power before steam engines were invented. For water, people would find a place where there was a stream of water, then build a water wheel to direct the water and Voila that would create you power. …show more content…
This invention allowed machine powered production and it even made the idea of factory life possible.
What I see in this picture is that, the steam engine is slowly pumping out steam, which flows into the piston that is slowly creating a vacuum, giving power to the machine to help it pump out water.
The source is called “Diagrammatic view of Newcomen’s Atmospheric or fire engine”.
I obtained this picture from this website http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/honors/Newcomen.htm, which does not state who created this picture. This picture was produced in 1712.
This picture is a secondary source because no one has claimed that the picture was theirs, and if they did then it either had to be Thomas Newcomen himself or one of his helpers to make this a primary source.
Context:
When this invention was created, Newcomen’s engine was used in the draining of mines and in raising water to power waterwheels.
Though his first invention the "fire engine" was not very effective because it could not work beyond a depth of thirty feet. He then later on fixed up this problem by improving his previous invention into a working beam engine.