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Chapter 20 - THE ENGINE OF NATURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

Steven C. Frautschi ,
Richard P. Olenick ,
Tom M. Apostol  and
David L. Goodstein
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Summary

Everybody knows that heat can cause movement, that it possesses great motive power; steam engines so common today are a vivid and familiar proof of it. … The study of these engines is of the greatest interest, their importance is enormous, and their use increases every day. They seem destined to produce a great revolution in the civilized world. …

Despite studies of all kinds devoted to steam engines, and in spite of the satisfactory state they have reached today, the theory of them has advanced very little and the attempts to improve them are still directed almost by change.

Sadi Carnot, “The Motive Power of Heat” (1824)

THE AGE OF STEAM

The age of steam is past. The steam engine is a curiosity, an object of nostalgia that has been replaced by diesel engines, electric motors, turbine engines, and gasoline engines to drive the wheels of civilization. Nonetheless, steam did have its day. The steam engine not only caused the Industrial Revolution, which changed our lives; it also led to discoveries in physics so profound that they changed the way we think. How did investigations into the nature of steam engines lead to a deeper understanding of the universe?

First, we need to understand how a steam engine operates. In essence, a steam engine is a device which heats water in a closed container, a boiler, thereby converting it to steam.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Mechanical Universe
Mechanics and Heat, Advanced Edition
 , pp. 505 - 530
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1986

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