A few days ago, "5G" and "the fourth industrial revolution" occupied the hot list, and we humans have experienced three industrial revolutions, one brought to us by steam, once brought to us by electricity, and once brought by the Internet. Today, we are about to usher in a new round of technological revolution brought to us by 5G and Internet of Things technology.
Every revolution in science and technology is a big step forward for human civilization, and before each big step, there must be advanced figures to lead this leap forward. The first industrial revolution of mankind was the most critical, which made the power of steam replace the power of human muscles, and the leader of this revolution was James Watt.
Portrait of Watt
Watt was born in 1736 in a small town in Glasgow, England.
When he was a child, he often stayed with his grandfather. His grandfather was a polymath who was well versed in mathematics, surveying, navigation, and so on, and whenever he talked to Watt about science, Watt listened attentively. Watt's father was the owner of an instrument-making shop in the town. His shop mainly made nautical mechanical instruments, Watt often ran to his father's shop to tinker with the complicated instruments, and would occasionally take apart to see the structure inside, sometimes, he would find the helpers in his father's shop, ask them some technical questions, and the helpers would patiently explain to him.
City of Glasgow
In such a family environment, Watt has cultivated an interest in equipment knowledge since he was a child, and has also developed a good habit of practicing and verifying the knowledge he has learned.
However, Watt was frail and sick from an early age, and the family's economic situation was not very optimistic, so he could only receive formal education intermittently, and in the end, he dropped out of school early due to physical reasons before he graduated. At home, he insisted on teaching himself astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics and other subjects.
At the age of 17, Watt came to an apprenticeship in a watch shop near the University of Glasgow, and thanks to Watt's previous knowledge of instruments, he was able to get started quickly with the job, and soon he was able to complete some repair and assembly work independently, and after a few months, he became a technical expert in the watch shop. Even if any of the instruments in the nearby University of Glasgow were broken, they would come to Watt to help repair it, which made Watt a celebrity in the University of Glasgow.
University of Glasgow
Due to the skill at hand, the University of Glasgow gave Watt the position of an instrumental experimenter. Watt was responsible for repairing and retrofitting instruments at the university. Through this opportunity, Watt can reach many famous scholars in the university, which is a good opportunity to expand the knowledge in his brain and a good step to realize the value of life.
Watt had pondered the problem of pushing the lid of a kettle with hot air as a child, and with the encouragement of a professor named Robinson, Watt began experimenting with steam systems.
In 1763, Watt was given an opportunity to send a Newcastle steam engine from the University of Glasgow to London for repair, and Watt had never seen the internal structure of the steam engine before, so he instigated the school to ship the machine back from London to try to repair it himself.
Watt discusses with academics at the University of Glasgow
After the machine was transported back, Watt dissected his internal structure in detail, and after Watt's observation, 80% of the steam heat of the steam engine was spent on maintaining the temperature of the cylinder, which consumed a lot of energy. Watt came up with the idea of separating the cylinder from the condenser so that the temperature of the cylinder was maintained at the time of steam injection. And he made a model, and Watt wanted to put the new product into production because he was sure it would have great social value.
Watt is working
If you want to produce a new instrument you are studying on a large scale, you first need to find a certain amount of experimental funds and make a decent instrument according to your own ideas to determine that this thing can really be used and useful. He found the steel tycoon at the time, Roebuck, received a monetary grant from him, and roebuck had a large number of steel patents that could be used by Watt.
However, the results of the first experiment were not successful, and the equipment was difficult to operate because the piston and cylinder were too rough to be manufactured. Due to the extremely high cost of applying for technology patents related to it, most of the test funds have to be used to apply for patents, and only a small part of the money can be used for experiments, so it is really impossible to do high-quality things. After that, Roebuck's company began to decline, and the shortage of funds became more and more, and the experimental plan of the new steam engine could only fail.
Complex steam engine structure
A few years later, Roebuck's company went bankrupt, and all the patents were taken over by Bolton, the owner of a foundry, who was also interested in Watt's steam engine, and with his support, Watt began to develop steam engines again. This time, he received more funding and technical support, and his experiment was a success.
In 1776, the first new steam engines were successfully built and put into production. But this steam engine can only be used on pump pumps, but this still brings great economic value to Watt, which wins a large number of orders and makes a lot of money.
At this time, Watt's key research goal is how to make the steam engine suitable for more machines, rather than just pumping pumps. Finally, a Watt employee developed a crank gear drive system that could allow steam engines to be used in a wide variety of large instruments.
Steam machinery
Subsequently, Watt made a series of improvements to the steam engine, which eventually made the steam engine 5 times more efficient than the first steam engine watt saw. In 1808 Watt was elected a member of the Académie française and, in 1814, a foreign member of the Académie française.
Watt's improved steam engine sparked the first industrial revolution for mankind, and the steam engine provided unprecedented power to mankind and promoted the progress of human history. After Watt improved the steam engine, a variety of new tools emerged, and in 1807, the American Fulton installed the steam engine on the steam engine, announcing the end of the era of human sailing. In 1814, the Englishman Stephenson installed a steam engine on a train, opening a new era of long-distance transportation on land for mankind. Some people say that Watt's improvement of the steam engine is the cornerstone of the "sun never sets" empire.
Watt (center) with his sponsors
After Watt's death, his body was buried in a church on the outskirts of Handwalls, and his obituary read: "It armed mankind, made the weak hands infinitely powerful, and perfected the human brain to deal with all problems." He laid a solid foundation for mechanical power to marvel in the future and will help repay the labor of future generations. ”。
Engineer's calculations
Later, in order to commemorate Watt and his immortal contribution, the unit of power was designated as "Watt", and later scientists and engineers can always recall his name and contribution when calculating problems, which can be said to be the highest honor of a scholar.