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Thomas Savery
Thomas Savery (; c. 1650 – 15 May 1715) was an English inventor and engineer. He invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump which is often referred to as the "Savery engine". Savery's steam pump was a revolutionary method of pumping water, which improved mine drainage and made widespread public water supply practicable. Career Thomas Savery was born at the manor house of Shilstone, near Modbury, Devon. He became a military engineer, rising to the rank of captain by 1702, and spent his free time performing experiments in mechanics. In 1696 he took out a patent for a machine for polishing glass or marble and another for "rowing of ships with greater ease and expedition than hitherto been done by any other" which involved paddle-wheels driven by a capstan and which was dismissed by the Admiralty following a negative report by the Surveyor of the Navy, Edmund Dummer. Savery also worked for the Sick and Hurt Commissioners, contracting the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shilstone
Modbury is a large village, ecclesiastical parish, civil parish and former manor in the South Hams district of the county of Devon in England. Today due to its large size it is generally referred to as a "town" although the parish council has not elected to give itself the status of a town as it could do under s.245(6) of the Local Government Act 1972, so it does not have a town council and cannot have a town mayor. It is also known informally as a "market town", as from at least 1199 the lord of the manor has held the right to hold a regular market. The village is situated on the A379 road, which links it to Plymouth and Kingsbridge. The current parish population is approximately 1,500. Etymology The name Modbury is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon name, ''Moot burgh'' from 'Moot' meaning either 'Mud' or 'meeting' and 'bury' meaning 'fortified enclosure'. History Modbury is recorded in Domesday Book. It has had permission to hold a weekly fair since before 1199. The populati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pistonless Pump
A pistonless pump is a type of pump designed to move fluids without any moving parts other than three chamber valves. The pump contains a chamber which has a valved inlet from the fluid to be pumped, a valved outlet – both of these at the bottom of the pump, and a pressurant inlet at the top of the pump. A pressurant is used, such as steam or pressurized helium, to drive the fluid through the pump. Introduction NASA have developed a low-cost rocket-fuel pump which has comparable performance to a turbopump at 80–90% lower cost. Perhaps the most difficult barrier to entry in the liquid rocket business is the turbopump. A turbopump design requires a large engineering effort and is expensive to manufacture and test. Starting a turbopump-fed rocket engine is a complex process, requiring a careful synchronisation of many valves and subsystems. In fact, Beal aerospace tried to avoid the issue entirely by building a huge pressure feed booster. Their booster never flew, but the engi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atmosphere (unit)
The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as Pa. It is sometimes used as a ''reference pressure'' or ''standard pressure''. It is approximately equal to Earth's average atmospheric pressure at sea level. History The standard atmosphere was originally defined as the pressure exerted by a 760 mm column of mercury at and standard gravity (''g''n = ). It was used as a reference condition for physical and chemical properties, and the definition of the centigrade temperature scale set 100 °C as the boiling point of water at this pressure. In 1954, the 10th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) adopted ''standard atmosphere'' for general use and affirmed its definition of being precisely equal to dynes per square centimetre (). This defined pressure in a way that is independent of the properties of any particular substance. In addition, the CGPM noted that there had been some misapprehension that the previous definition (from the 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
York Buildings Company
The York Buildings Company was an English company in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Waterworks The full name of the company was The Governor and Company for Raising the Thames Water at York Buildings. The undertaking was established in 1675 and incorporated in 1690 with a capital of £4,800 (), but obtained a private act in 1691 to increase its capital and enable it to buy lands. As might be expected this provided the company with a steady, but unspectacular income from the rents paid by the householders supplied with water. Water supply was its sole business until 1719. The company was technologically advanced for its time. It tried the steam pump of Thomas Savery, a precursor of the steam engine, though this proved a failure. In 1726, a Newcomen engine was installed at York Buildings but when the company fell into financial difficulties in 1732 the engine was broken up, cylinders being sold to the London Lead Company and Sir James Lowther. However the company conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, Alchemy, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system. Among his works, ''The Sceptical Chymist'' is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. He was a devout and pious Anglican and is noted for his works in theology. Biography Early years Boyle was born at Lismore Castle in County Waterford, in the far south of Ireland, the seventh son and fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, the 1st Earl of Cork ("the Great Earl of Cork") and Catherine Fenton Boyle, Catherine Fenton. Lord Cor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed. His book (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), first published in 1687, achieved the Unification of theories in physics#Unification of gravity and astronomy, first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy, shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating calculus, infinitesimal calculus, though he developed calculus years before Leibniz. Newton contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science. In the , Newton formulated the Newton's laws of motion, laws of motion and Newton's law of universal g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denis Papin
Denis Papin FRS (; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker, the steam engine, the centrifugal pump, submersible and possibly the paddlesteamer (1707). Early life and education Born in Chitenay (Loir-et-Cher, Centre-Val de Loire Région), Papin attended a Jesuit school there. In 1661, he attended the University of Angers, from which he graduated with a medical degree in 1669. Career In 1673, Papin worked with Christiaan Huygens and Gottfried Leibniz in Paris, and became interested in using a vacuum to generate motive power. In 1675, he first visited London, where he worked with Robert Boyle from 1676 to 1679, publishing an account of his work in ''Continuation of New Experiments'' (1680). During this period, Papin invented the '' steam digester,'' a type of pressure cooker with a safety valve. He first addressed the Roya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newcomen Steam Engine
The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is sometimes referred to as the Newcomen fire engine (see below) or Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam being drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum which allowed atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It is significant as the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work. Newcomen engines were used throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mining, mines. Hundreds were constructed during the 18th century. James Watt's Watt steam engine, later engine design was an improved version of the Newcomen engine that roughly doubled fuel efficiency. Many atmospheric engines were converted to the Watt design. As a result, Watt is today better known than Newcomen in relation to the origin of the steam engine. Precursors Prior to Newcomen a number of small steam devices of various sorts had been made, but most were es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fathom
A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to , used especially for measuring the depth of water. The fathom is neither an international standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally accepted non-SI unit. Historically it was the maritime measure of depth in the English-speaking world but, apart from within the US, charts now use metres. There are two yards (6 feet) in an imperial fathom. Originally the span of a man's outstretched arms, the size of a fathom has varied slightly depending on whether it was defined as a thousandth of an (Admiralty) nautical mile or as a multiple of the imperial yard. Formerly, the term was used for any of several units of length varying around . Etymology The term (pronounced ) derives (via Middle English ''fathme'') from the Old English ''fæðm'', which is cognate with the Danish word ''favn'' and means "embracing arms" or "pair of outstretched arms". It is maybe also cognate with the Old High German wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliament Of Scotland
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. The term is similar to the idea of a senate, synod or congress and is commonly used in countries that are current or former monarchies. Some contexts restrict the use of the word ''parliament'' to parliamentary systems, although it is also used to describe the legislature in some presidential systems (e.g., the Parliament of Ghana), even where it is not in the Legal name, official name. Historically, parliaments included various kinds of deliberative, consultative, and judicial assemblies. What is considered to be the first modern parliament, was the Cortes of León, held in the Kingdom of León in 1188. According to the UNESCO, the Decreta of Leon of 1188 is the oldest documentary manifestation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Smith (architect, Died 1731)
James Smith (c. 1645–1731) was a Scottish architect, who pioneered the Palladian style in Scotland. He was described by Colen Campbell, in his ''Vitruvius Britannicus'' (1715–1725), as "the most experienced architect of that kingdom". Biography Born in Tarbat, Ross, Smith was the son of James Smith (died c.1684), a mason, who became a burgess of Forres, Moray, in 1659.Colvin, pp.755–758 The architect is generally identified as the "James Smith of Morayshire" who attended the Scots College, Rome from 1671–75, initially with the aim of entering the Catholic priesthood, although some scholars are cautious about the certainty of this identification. He had certainly travelled abroad, however, and was well-educated, with a knowledge of Latin.Gifford, pp.62–67 By December 1677, Smith was in touch with Sir William Bruce, the most prominent architect of the time in Scotland, and the designer of the rebuilt Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh. Here, Smith served as a mason, under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
