From hero to Newcomen: the critical scientific and technological developments that led to the invention of the steam engine.

Abstract

This essay provides an analytical account of the history of various steam devices by tracing the key technological and scientific developments culminating in the Savery and Newcomen models. It begins in antiquity with the writings of Hero of Alexandria, which were rediscovered and translated in Italy fourteen centuries later, followed by the construction of simple steam devices. The most decisive development comes in the middle of the seventeenth century with the overturning, through the experimental work of Torricelli, Pascal, and Guericke, of the Aristotelian dogma that no vacuum exists. The final stretch of this discovery process amounted to an Anglo-French race, with English inventors being more successful in the end.