The chemical work of James Watt, F. R. S

1985 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Phase ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
250Th Anniversary ◽  
Chemical Work ◽  
Instrument Maker ◽  
Astronomical Instruments ◽  
James Watt ◽  
Joseph Black ◽  
The University

The 250th anniversary of the birth of James Watt will be celebrated in January 1986. Watt is primarily remembered for his improvements to the steam engine, which were of such great importance in the early phase of the Industrial Revolution (1). It is less well known that throughout his life Watt was interested in chemistry. This article outlines the main themes of Watt’s chemical work. Watt learned the trade of instrument maker in London. On returning to his native Scotland in 1756 he was employed for a few months by the University of Glasgow in the repair of some astronomical instruments. During this time he met the newly appointed professor of anatomy and chemistry, Joseph Black, who may have assisted Watt in obtaining his appointment as mathematical instrument maker to the University in the following year. It seems possible that Black stimulated Watt’s latent interest in chemistry. Although Watt’s subsequent career took him away from Scotland, he remained in correspondence with Black until the latter’s death in 1799. This correspondence shows how keen and sustained was Watt’s interest in chemistry (2).

James Watt (1736-1819)

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Scientific Instrument ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Instrument Maker ◽  
James Watt ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
Joseph Black ◽  
Technological Achievement

James Watt (1736-1819) was a pivotal figure of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. His career as a scientific instrument maker, inventor and engineer developed in Scotland, the land of birth. His prominence as a scientist, technologist and businessman was forged in the Birmingham area. His pumping and rotative steam engines represent the summit of technological achievement in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries which led to future developments in locomotive and steamship design and mechanical engineering such as the steam hammer. This is the traditional picture of James Watt. After his death, his son, James Watt junior, projected his father’s image through commissioning sculptures, medals, paintings and biographies which celebrated his reputation as a ‘great man’ of industry and science. Though some academic appraisals have sought to move beyond the heroic image of Watt, there is still a tendency to focus on his steam technology. This collection of ten chapters breaks new ground by looking at Watt in new ways: by exploring his philosophical and intellectual background; the relevance of his Greenock environment; the influence of his wives, Peggy and Ann; Watt’s political fears and beliefs; his links with other scientists such as Thomas Beddoes, Davies Giddy, Humphry Davy, Joseph Black and James Keir; Watt and the business of natural philosophy; his workshop in the Science Museum and what it reveals; the myth or reality of his involvement with organ making and the potential of Birmingham’s Watt Papers for further exploration of his personality, family and domestic and business activities.

The Rise of James Watt

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-60
Author(s):  
Stephen Mullen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Instrument Maker ◽  
James Watt ◽  
The University ◽  
Formative Years

This chapter offers a re-appraisal of the life of James Watt (1736–1819) in Greenock and Glasgow in the formative period of his career. In the mid-eighteenth century, Greenock developed into a major seaport connecting Scotland to the Americas via the river Clyde. Upriver, Glasgow received imports of North American tobacco and Caribbean sugar. Travelling to Glasgow in 1754, Watt worked in a burgh on the cusp of industrialisation fuelled by commerce and enabled by the application of enlightened ideas. His embryonic career was ignited by his appointment as mathematical instrument maker to the University of Glasgow before leaving for Birmingham in 1774. This chapter uncovers the Watt family’s connections with transatlantic commerce and chattel slavery concluding the profits were instrumental in Watt’s rise. Through an Atlantic world lens, this chapter re-assesses Watt’s formative years which laid the foundations for one of the greatest careers of the industrial revolution.

Leibniz’s Theme, Babbage’s Dream

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrata Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Steam Power ◽  
Water Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Automate Calculation ◽  
James Watt

The German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is perhaps best remembered in science as the co-inventor (with Newton) of the differential calculus. In our story, however, he has a presence not so much because, like his great French contemporary the philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), he built a calculating machine—in Pascal’s case, the machine could add and subtract, whereas Leibniz’s machine also performed multiplication and division—but for something he wrote vis-à-vis calculating machines. He wished that astronomers could devote their time strictly to astronomical matters and leave the drudgery of computation to machines, if such machines were available. Let us call this Leibniz’s theme, and the story I will tell here is a history of human creativity built around this theme. The goal of computer science, long before it came to be called by this name, was to delegate the mental labor of computation to the machine. Leibniz died well before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, circa 1760s, when the cult and cultivation of the machine would transform societies, economies, and mentalities. The pivot of this remarkable historical event was steam power. Although the use of steam to move machines automatically began with the English ironmonger and artisan Thomas Newcomen (1663–1727) and his invention of the atmospheric steam engine in 1712, just 4 years before Leibniz’s passing, the steam engine as an efficient source of mechanical power, as an efficient means of automating machinery, as a substitute for human, animal, and water power properly came into being with the invention of the separate condenser in 1765 by Scottish instrument maker, engineer, and entrepreneur James Watt (1738–1819)—a mechanism that greatly improved the efficiency of Newcomen’s engine. The steam engine became, so to speak, the alpha and omega of machine power. It was the prime mover of ancient Greek thought materialized. And Leibniz’s theme conjoined with the steam engine gave rise, in the minds of some 19th-century thinkers, to a desire to automate calculation or computation and to free humans of this mentally tedious labor.

James Watt’s Workshop

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-208
Author(s):  
Ben Russell
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Instrument Making ◽  
James Watt

The workshop of engineer James Watt is a jewel in the collections of the Science Museum, London. Containing over eight thousand objects, it is a complete physical record of Watt’s working life and interests. Watt is best known for his work on the steam engine but, rather than being filled with steam components, the workshop is full of sculpture, chemistry, instrument-making, antiquity, and much else besides. This chapter will use Watt’s workshop as a lens through which we can explore the knowledge economy underpinning Britain’s industrial revolution and question the kind of knowledge which counted in that economy.

Joseph Black, carbon dioxide, latent heat, and the beginnings of the discovery of the respiratory gases

2014 ◽  
Vol 306 (12) ◽  
pp. L1057-L1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. West
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Latent Heat ◽  
Renal Stone ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Solid Material ◽  
Magnesium Carbonate ◽  
New Era ◽  
James Watt ◽  
Respiratory Gases ◽  
Joseph Black

The discovery of carbon dioxide by Joseph Black (1728–1799) marked a new era of research on the respiratory gases. His initial interest was in alkalis such as limewater that were thought to be useful in the treatment of renal stone. When he studied magnesium carbonate, he found that when this was heated or exposed to acid, a gas was evolved that he called “fixed air” because it had been combined with a solid material. He showed that the new gas extinguished a flame, that it could not support life, and that it was present in gas exhaled from the lung. Within a few years of his discovery, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were also isolated. Thus arguably Black's work started the avalanche of research on the respiratory gases carried out by Priestley, Scheele, Lavoisier, and Cavendish. Black then turned his attention to heat and he was the first person to describe latent heat, that is the heat added or lost when a liquid changes its state, for example when water changes to ice or steam. Latent heat is a key concept in thermal physiology because of the heat lost when sweat evaporates. Black was a friend of the young James Watt (1736–1819) who was responsible for the development of early steam engines. Watt was puzzled why so much cooling was necessary to condense steam into water, and Black realized that the answer was the latent heat. The resulting improvements in steam engines ushered in the Industrial Revolution.

Watt linkages and quadrilaterals

2004 ◽  
Vol 88 (513) ◽  
pp. 475-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Keady ◽  
P. Scales ◽  
P. Németh
Keyword(s):  
Limited Range ◽  
Equal Length ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Engine Piston ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
James Watt

We define a Watt quadrilateral to be a quadrilateral with a pair of opposite sides of equal length. See Figure 1.2. LinkagesThe Watt linkage (Figure 2) has equal-length cranks AD and BC, A and B fixed, and coupler bar CD. It was devised by James Watt about 1784 to constrain the steam-engine piston rod, connected at E, the midpoint of CD, to approximate straight-line motion over a limited range.

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