Howes: The Spanish Engine���Noted

Anton Howes: The Spanish Engine https://antonhowes.substack.com/p/age-of-invention-the-spanish-engine: ���Jer��nimo de Ayanz y Beaumont.... The steam engines invented by Savery and then Newcomen in the 1690s and 1700s mainly exploited the observation that the air had a weight...

...the main force was applied, not by the steam itself doing the pushing, but by the steam within a tank being doused in cold water, causing it to rapidly condense. The resulting partial vacuum meant that it was the weight of the air���the atmospheric pressure���that did the real lifting work. Rather than using hot steam to push, these engines used its condensation to suck. For Newcomen, this pulling effect happened under a piston in a cylinder, with the piston driving a beam up and down, which in turn worked a pump all the way down the mine....

Ayanz���s machine, on the other hand... ���did not contemplate the possibility of utilizing a supplementary source of pressure���that of the atmosphere���. And nor could he have, for Ayanz was tinkering with steam devices decades before atmospheric pressure was sufficiently understood. It���s a very clear case of how the lack of science limited the technological possibilities���

.#economicgrowth #economichistory #noted #2020-08-16