Take the first steam engine for pumping water. This was built by Thomas Newcomen, a barely literate, provincial ironmonger and Baptist lay preacher, and developed further by James Watt. The understanding of both men was intuitive and practical. But the success of the engine raised a deep question: why does this incredible device actually work (it broke the then laws of physics)? This question inspired Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, a French physicist, to develop the laws of thermodynamics. Trial and error inspired the technology, which in turn inspired the theory. This is the linear model in
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