WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Running on Steam 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.640 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.800 I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio and I 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.560 love all things tech and it is time for a 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.360 classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:30.840 October six, two thousand thirteen. It is called Running on Steam. Yep, 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.640 we're gonna talk about some steamy stuff today, so let's 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.120 listen back to this classic episode. We're talking about steam 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.839 engines today and how they work and the principles behind them, 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:45.440 and it really comes down to thermodynamics. You know, you're 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.959 talking about heat really and what heat does and how 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.599 it changes things, and that's you know, harnessing that has 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.800 allowed us to have a little bit of a revolution 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.760 industrially speaking. Do do pretty goodness my ration, I'm slow today. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.360 It took me like four seconds. You're slow. You didn't 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.000 forget to introduce you everybody, we're both on okay. But 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.800 so yeah, So the thing about gases, um when when 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.399 when you heat them up, they they do stuff. Yeah, 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.800 they move the molecules and the gases move around a 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.319 lot more than they usually do. So let's say let's 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.080 say you've got a liquid, all right, You've got all 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.640 those molecules together in a liquid, their chain together, right, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:28.440 they formed this this collection of molecules that are all 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.760 part of a larger hole. So example, you've got a 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.880 bucket of water, those molecules are all bound together to 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.240 make that water. Now you can you can separate some 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.039 water from that, but the molecules within that separate section, 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.120 they're still bound together. It's not like you've just freed 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.319 them and they're now flying all over the place. But 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.600 if you add energy, as in heat to that water 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.600 and you boil the water, that water starts to boil 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.520 off and form steam. It's the gas form of that substance. 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.640 And now the molecules can break free of each other. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.880 So now you've got these free flowing molecules that are 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.600 zipping around at high speed depending upon how much heat 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.720 you've put into the system. And as it turns out, 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.840 they exert pressure. I mean, this has momentum. It if 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.960 it hits against stuff, it can press against stuff. And 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.680 if you're able to harness that in some way, you 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.799 can make that do work. Right. Yeah, yeah, it's it's 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.560 you know, when you've got a sealed container and you 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.000 create steam inside of it, it's going to exert pressure 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:30.960 on the sides of that container, which can then do 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.920 work yeah, or explode, as it turns out, depending upon 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.120 what you've made the container out of and how hot 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.000 you've made that water. Uh, yeah, Because that's the other thing, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.960 is that water when it goes into steam, it's expanding, right, 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.600 You're talking about making it take up more space than 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.680 normally would, more volume than it normally would, And that, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.080 as it turns out, is a very important part of 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.239 some early steam engines, the idea that you can make 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:59.680 something take up more room and as it condenses, meaning 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.320 that and the steam starts to cool down and turn 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.400 back into water, it's taken up less room. Right, it's 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.480 going to create a little bit of a vacuum you 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.880 can also use to do work. Yeah. So both of 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.680 those those things, the idea of steam being able to 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.880 press against stuff and the idea of steam once it condenses, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.880 creating a vacuum, those are the basic principles behind your 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:24.200 your various kinds of steam engines. Now, this idea is 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.400 not brand new. First of all, You've got a lot 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.160 of people who will cite that A certain person named 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.040 James Watt was the inventor of the steam engine. As 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.480 it turns out, that's being a little premature to say 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.840 that he did. I mean he would. He certainly played 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:42.280 an instrumental role in making steam engines uh practical, But 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.120 you have to go way back if you want to 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.920 look at the people who were really the inventors as 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.040 far as we know of steam engines. That keep in mind, 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.880 we're talking right now about the first recorded instances of 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.360 people talking about steam engines. That the idea itself might 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.839 even be older, right, but the first recorded instances are 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:06.920 from the first century, yeah, Common era. We're talking a 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:12.120 hero or Huron or heroes or heroes of Alexandria. Uh. 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.039 He he was a Greek mathematician and uh inventor. Ye 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.440 he was born in Egypt, lived and worked and mostly 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.600 in Alexandria, but was of Greek origin, and uh did 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.760 a lot of different works. You know, he invented a 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.880 lot of different things, or at least wrote about a 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.400 lot of things that we presume he invented. It may 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.240 very will be that he was just writing about stuff 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.120 that other people have done, but as far as we know, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.560 he's the one who originated these ideas. Yeah. He had 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.360 a few inventions that he wrote about. A coin operated device. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.039 I don't even know if it was like a you know, 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.039 sandal vending machine or something, or you know, put a 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.600 coin in and watch the lion eat somebody. I don't know. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.920 I'm hoping fortune teller. Um it's Zartan you make up. 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.919 I wish I were big. Uh, Yeah, I don't know. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.400 He also wrote a lot about the discoveries of the Babylonians, 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.640 the Egyptians and also other Greeks and also the Romans, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:10.880 and a bunch of stuff about the properties of air, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.440 which is going to come very much in handy for 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.320 one of these other things that he described. Yeah, the 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.919 uh I think you're you're referring to the A L pile? 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.320 Is that how you say that? How I say it? 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.479 I'll tell you how it's spelled. It's a E O 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.159 L I P I L E. And I do not 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.760 speak Greek. It's all Greek to me, So I and 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.599 Lawrence just shaking her head disapprovingly. Can you can you 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.600 hear in our echoe studio the rattle of my head shaking? 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.600 And I can certainly see it better? Uh, this this 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.560 room is better lit than our other studio was it's 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.560 much larger. It's it's like a nice cave. It is. 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.720 It is a nice cave. So this, this device that 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.279 Heron or hero or Heroes had designed, was an early 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.440 form of what we would consider a steam engine, although 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.920 from what we can tell, it was mostly meant a 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.479 sort of a decoration or distraction, all right, more and 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.200 more like a toy. And several of the things that 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.400 we're going to be talking about from these early periods 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.480 are more likely to be toys than anything else because concepts. 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.600 He was the idea of exploring this, this nature of 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.320 well steam can do these these wild wacky things. I 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.880 don't know how we would do this in anything, and 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:22.280 I don't know how we would use this in any 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.280 practical way, but look at this cool thing and what 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.440 it can do. So what his could do was it 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.720 was imagined like a big bowl made out of some 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.560 metal like brass. They got a big brass bowl. It's 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.440 actually sealed, so you put water in it, but then 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.360 you put a water tight seal on there. It does 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.160 have two pipes that come up from the top of 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.480 the seal that then meet up with a sphere that 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.560 is mounted on these two pipes. All right, the sphere 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:54.800 itself can can rotate along this axis that the pipes make. 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.240 There's some sort of steam tight ball bearings that were involved, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.719 I guess. Also, by the way, we don't know that 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.000 this was ever built, but this was his design. So 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.320 in the the idea was that you put the water 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.080 inside this bowl. You would heat of the bowl, the 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.600 water would convert into steam, which would go up into 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.080 the pipes into the sphere. And the sphir itself had 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.640 two nozzles or two jets on on on opposite sides 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.720 I believe, right opposite sides facing so that they would 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.680 allow the ball to rotate once steam escapes, the same 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.720 way that if you attached to bottle rockets to two 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.480 sides of a wheel um and then you know, let 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.680 it let's let it push it along, right, So in 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.560 this case the pushing is kind of interesting. So let's 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.840 talk about what's going on inside that sphere, which, as 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.920 far as we know, was never actually built. But inside 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.400 that sphere sphere, Now, if the sphere had no nozzles, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.680 if there were no there were no openings, there were, 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:48.240 but somehow there was just water in there that you 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.640 had converted into steam. That steam would be pressing, pressing 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:56.160 equally on all surfaces, exactly sphere interiors. So in other words, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:57.600 if you're looking at it, if you were able to 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.400 slow things down to just look at things like a 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.800 nanosecond at a time, and you're able to observe individual molecules, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.040 you would see these molecules bouncing off the various interior 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.600 surfaces of that sphere. But because they're going in all directions, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:15.880 they're canceling each other out, which means that the ball 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.120 itself is staying still relative to its environment. Hypothetically as sathing. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.200 It's a perfect sphere, and that there aren't any you know, 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.600 major design flaws right there, Like there's not some weird 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.120 thing there that's blocking where molecules can usually hit. But 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.040 if you put an opening in that sphere, that means 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:33.840 some of the molecules are going to go through the 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.040 opening and escape, So that means they are not exerting 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.200 that force inside the sphere on the opposite side where 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.160 molecules are banging against that that edge of the sphere 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.720 that makes the sphere move. So in other words, it's 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.679 not even that steam is escaping, it's that the steam 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.120 that steam that is escaping is not counteracting the force 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:57.480 that's that it's uh counterparts are doing inside that sphere, 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.880 which I think is kind of an interesting explanation when 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:02.760 you think about it. And Uh, there was a a 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.560 site I was reading where his example was, imagine you 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.960 have a cardboard box, but you've taken the bottom and 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:10.960 the top off of it, and you've taken one of 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:12.640 the walls off of it. I think you put a 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.640 whole bunch of kids in there, just running around, and 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:16.240 whenever they hit one of the sides of the walls, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.280 they careen off in a different direction. But because there's 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.920 one section side that doesn't have a wall, sometimes kids 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.120 just keep on running and they're they're outside of the box. Meanwhile, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.360 the kids who are hitting the opposite side where there 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.199 is a wall, are moving the box. And yeah, so 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.520 it's forward motion keeps going, but it's left and right 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.160 motions stay more or less the same because they get 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.040 canceled out by the various kids. I thought, what an 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.560 interesting way to do that, And now I want to 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:44.920 Now I want to build this and I want to 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.640 watch it happen, probably from you know, a fifty foot 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.240 observation tower. I don't kids and me. That's not I'm 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.439 picturing that we could use podcasters instead of children. We 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.040 probably could, although we've got some kind of lazy podcasters. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.920 I don't know, they might, you know, just kind of 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:07.440 push the wall. Our podcasters zombies. Well, you know, I 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.920 mostly interact with them after lunch, so that's always when 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.679 we get this neozies. Alright. So anyway, that was the 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.600 basis behind his idea. But he also had another one 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.679 that would use steam to do work. That was my 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.400 favorite example, so I had to include it. Yeah, this 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.719 one I had not seen it, but so so there 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.079 was a steam powered temple doors. That was the idea. 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.720 He I've got this great illustration. I'll show you after 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.000 the podcast, Laura. I'll put it up on our social 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.080 too when we when we get this podcast out. But 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.800 the idea was really kind of interesting. So in the illustration, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.560 there's this altar and these temple doors, and the altar 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:43.560 has a little area in it where you could set 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.680 a sacrificial fire. Now that fire, the idea was that 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.680 the fire would heat up water that would create steam. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.640 It would push the steam into a second container. That container, 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.480 in turn had a tube leading out of it, and 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.600 the other end of the tube would lead into a bucket. Now, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.040 from what I can tell, it looks like the idea 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.280 is that the steam would push into this container. The 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.559 container would push more steam in through this other tube 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:09.679 that was leading to the bucket, and there the steam 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.120 would start to cool down and condense it turned into water. 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:14.960 So when they would turn the water, the water would 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.040 flow into the bucket. Yeah, which makes it heavy down. 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.240 And the bucket itself is suspended by a pulley, and 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.640 so because the bucket gets heavier, it starts to exert 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.640 force on the pulley and eventually would pull the pulley 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.319 so that the ropes on the other side of the 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.120 pulley would actually split into two ropes wrapping around these 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.839 two columns. And as those ropes the tension grew, it 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.000 would make those columns rotate. The rotation of the columns 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.000 in turn would open the temple doors. So by lighting 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.200 the fire, you would entice the gods to open the 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.199 doors for you, allowing people into your temple. Now, as 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.560 it turns out, I think that this was probably a 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.360 lot of work to open doors when you could just 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.760 walk up and open them push it. But as it 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.040 turns out, That's one of the reasons why steam technology 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.600 took so long to develop, even though we're talking about 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.240 just you know, just a few decades into the Common era. 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.080 That's when we're talking about steam engines. The reason we 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:11.920 weren't using them for work is because there were a 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.280 lot of other sources for work back in those days. 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.840 Like the Romans had lots and lots of slaves, and 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.719 as it turns out, the the history of Europe had 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.160 lots of that kind of thing. Either it was either 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.240 slavery or serfdom. Anyway, there was a lot of source 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.400 of cheap labor out there, so you didn't have to 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.920 worry about building things to make labor easier. That's what 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:36.200 those unfortunate people were for. Um. Yeah, and and also also, 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.800 you know, the metal working at the time was not 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.240 such that you could safely build boiler chambers that would 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.840 really withstand the pressures necessary. Right, you had a lot 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:46.600 of these prices. We wouldn't get into that until like 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.679 the eighteen exactly. You could build low pressure steam steam boilers, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.920 but low pressure means that you can't do a lot 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.120 of work with them. They do. You know, you're releasing steam, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:12:59.800 you're genering steam and releasing steam in a way where 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.720 it not exerting the kind of pressure you would need 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.800 to do anything really significant unless you were to be 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.640 incredibly clever with your design. But we'll get into that. 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.480 We we have to go a little bit further before 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.280 we get to that part. But these were the fundamentals, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.000 right of steam power, This idea of being able to 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.800 to change water into another form and make it do work. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.800 It would just take a you know, a millennia and 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.280 change before anyone started to think about it in another 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.600 more practical way. Yeah. Our next own factor is from 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.880 three Blastco Degara. He was an officer in the Smash Navy, 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.640 and we don't know for sure that he actually tried 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.400 to do this or that what he proposed was in 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.440 fact a steam engine, because it's pretty vague, but he 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.240 was talking about creating some sort of paddle boat that 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.680 may have been steam powered. Yeah. The phrase used in 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.800 the literature is vessel of boiling water. Right, so as 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.160 far as we know the vessel of boiling water, well 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.959 you could guess that, well, that must mean that it 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.520 was using steam in some way, but because there isn't 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.240 enough context there, we can't be certain. But it sounds 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.560 like the idea was that you would use some sort 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.880 of vessel of boiling water to generate steam in order 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.640 to turn the paddles on a boat, very much like 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:20.920 we would see uh centuries later. But that the history 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.720 books don't record any great Spanish paddle boats sailing across 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.800 various European waters. So I guess we can probably draw 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.200 the conclusion that this was an interesting idea that was 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:39.040 never actualized, or if it was, it sunk um. And 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.000 the next one's a sixteen o one, which not that 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.920 not that long afterward, when a fellow named Giovanni Batista 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:52.240 della Porta wrote in a book called Spiritali of an 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.160 invention that would use steam pressure to raise a column 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.000 of water through a vacuum created by steam when it condenses. Now, 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:00.800 this is what you were talking of out earlier, Lauren, 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.800 right along the same lines, or I guess, along opposite 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.200 lines of all of these people who are theorizing that 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.400 you know, you can you can convert steam, convert water 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.200 to steam within a closed container and that will result 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.960 in increased pressure. That the opposite, if you can condense 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.200 steam into water, that it will create a vacuum. Right, Yeah, 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.200 And that's that was an interesting idea that would again 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.560 be capitalized on later. But this is the very basis 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.560 of the earliest steam engines that we're doing work. Not 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.640 that you were using steam to push something, but rather 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.080 that you had created a chamber where steam, once it 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.440 cools down and condenses into water, creates the suction force 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.240 through the through creating a vacuum and thus can pull something. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.280 And uh. In fact, as we'll talk about in just 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.840 a couple of minutes, that's really how steam engines got 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.080 their start. Uh. And again it that one of the 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.040 nice things about this, and I really do mean it 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.240 as a nice thing, is that you could use a 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.320 low pressure steam engine to create this effect. You didn't 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.280 have to create high pressure to push something. You could 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.000 just create steam in a low pressure environment, allow it 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.400 to condense, and then it would create this this force 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.240 all on its own. So uh, it ended up being 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.800 a much more safe way of using steam power, especially 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.880 early on, before we had really reached the level of 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.720 machining parts that could withstand those intense pressures that happen 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.280 when you create lots of steam in a confined space. 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.840 I don't know if any of our listeners are familiar 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.240 with a little program called MythBusters. Uh, MythBusters, of course, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.240 a Discovery Channel show. I was a huge fan, well, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.600 well before I even worked for How Stuff Works, I 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.360 was a big fan of the show. But I got 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.120 to see MythBusters live in Atlanta. They came down and 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.600 did a behind the scenes kind of tour and they 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.960 talked a little bit about the various explosions that they've 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.160 seen on the show. And the reason why I'm saying 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.560 this is that the the explosion they said was the 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:58.760 most impressive and most terrifying was the water heater explosion 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.040 because when you have that water under you know, turning 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.400 into steam under the intense pressure, and if you've cut 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.720 off all the safety valves, which you should never ever 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.600 ever do, right then yeah, safety valves on on boilers, 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.920 in fact, are one of the terrific inventions without which 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.640 we probably would well we certainly wouldn't be here because 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.160 we'd have a totally different world, our world we never 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:26.000 would have had happened. So um, yeah, because he showed that, 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.560 you know, you could essentially it would turn a water 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.800 heater into part bomb, part rocket, and it was just 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.560 you're talking about superheated water that's well past the boiling 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.480 point due to the pressure hitting the air, boiling instantaneously 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.720 turning into super hot steam. So just being close to this, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.199 even if you weren't hit by shrapnel, you could be 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.520 burned severely just from the steam. This is serious stuff. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.200 So that's why these low pressure engines were the first 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.560 foray into steam engines. Although we're still not quite there yet. 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.760 We're just talking about theory at the moment. All Right, 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.760 I've I've got one from two Okay, this was Ferdinand 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.840 um Verbs I'm going to go with that pronunciation um 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.920 He He might have he was living in the Imperial 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.080 Chinese court at the time, and he may have created 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.040 a working steam car or toy um interesting. He at 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.879 least drow up plans for one, and I'm not sure again, 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.119 it's it's really yeah, it's it's hard to say a 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.480 lot of these things from these earlier inventors, Uh, you know, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.360 they haven't survived. So they may have one we don't 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.400 know if they were ever built and then just were 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.919 destroyed or lost, or we don't know if you know, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.399 they just was just in the plans but never actually built. 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.480 One thing that I do believe was built In sixteen 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.720 seventy nine, a French scientist and math professor named um 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:45.399 Venice Papa from from Yes, France. I already said that excellent, Um, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.240 I've created the first pressure cooker, which is really a 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.240 direct application of what dela Portia was talking about. Um. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.520 This was I think the official name translated is the 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.280 digester or engine for softening bones, which isn't creepy at all. 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:01.399 That does. It made me think of Serial Killer in 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.840 the slightest but by but by attaching to this pressurized 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.680 chamber slighting piston, uh you know, and then heating the pot, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.800 the expanding steam would push the piston up, and then 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.560 the vacuum created when the steam cooled liquid liquid would 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.960 pull the piston back downtcha um. And this is going 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:23.000 to become extremely important very soon. Yeah. Uh. There were 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:24.879 a lot of other people who were thinking about steam 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.880 engines at this time. So while you know, you would 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.760 argue that steam engines really didn't come into play until 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.560 the mid seventeen hundreds, it was the sixteen hundreds where 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.159 we had lots of people theorizing about it. They were 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.560 kind of laying the groundwork that would allow the The 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.840 following scientists engineers, mechanics, you know, just interesting people who 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.679 who thought about steam power and began to put it 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.320 to our to a practical application. They would follow and 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.040 build upon the discoveries that the their forefathers had come 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.320 up with, and those included people like Jacob Besson. There's 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.920 a little guy named Leonardo da vinci Um. He had 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.320 three turtle friends, as I recall, and was trained by 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:12.000 a rat uh Florence Vault, Thomas Grant, Edward Ford. Lots 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.639 of people were really talking about steam at this time, 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.520 and then that leads us up to a fellow who 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:25.159 patented an idea in six Thomas Savory, and he was 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.520 the one who who was really interested in this idea 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:32.240 of using the condensing steam to do work right. Well, okay, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.359 so it's a little bit of background on what he 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.520 what he patented. So coal mines were booming at this 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.440 time because England was facing this timber crisis. There were 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.040 increases in ship building and lots of firewood being used, 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.600 so so coal mining was becoming huge all right. So 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.480 cole was starting to become the fuel of choice in England, 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.080 and of course that would remain true for the next 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.879 couple of centuries and so he patented this thing that 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.720 he called the miners friend Um because a problem in 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.840 coal mines as you wind up getting water in places 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.639 where you really don't want water, and like where there 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.679 are people underground or where you're yeah, exactly where you're 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.600 trying to work, and it's much harder when in there, 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.080 you know, would completely submerged exactly. We'll talk more about 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.159 that in the podcast that we're going to record immediately 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.800 after this one. But so, but so he uh so 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.960 he patented this thing that I don't again like, I 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.040 don't think he ever built it. Yeah, it was a 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:33.000 design for a device that could pump water out of minds, 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:38.280 using a steam powered apparatus to to operate the pump. 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:42.000 But again, you're not using steam to push something. It 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.320 was a design where the condensing steam would create a 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.200 pulling force that would move some sort of piston or 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:52.560 which in turn would move some sort of lever that 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.440 in turn would operate a pump and pull water out. 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:59.320 One of the problems was that it was even based 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.480 just on the does ligne, they could tell that it 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:03.680 was going to be fairly limited in how far it 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.199 could draw water. Something like you know, between twenty and 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:11.000 thirty feet maybe um, and that would be something that 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:16.000 future engineers would improve upon. Hate to interrupt this steamy conversation, 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.280 but it's time for us to take a quick break. 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.480 All right, Let's get back into talking about steam engines. 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.520 So we have worked our way up to seventeen twelve 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.399 when a fellow named Thomas Newcoming invents a steam engine 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.159 that is following along the same lines as Thomas Savory's idea, 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.119 the idea to pump water from mines. The basic design 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:47.280 was like this. You had a boiler, and the boiler's purpose, 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.480 of course, is to hold the water and to allow 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.840 that to heat up to steam. Right, So the steam 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.320 would move into a cylinder which had a piston in it. 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.320 But again, it wasn't meant to push the piston. The 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.320 pistons natural resting place was at the top of the 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.919 cylinder because the piston was attached to kind of a 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:08.240 counter lever arm and the other end of the arm 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:10.600 was pulled down by gravity. It was meant to be 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.160 heavier than the side that the piston was attached to, right, 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:17.240 And so when the steam would cool, it would condense, 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.200 and then the force of the vacuum that created would 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.000 pull the piston down and the lift to the other 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.240 side of the which would operate the pump. So here 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:30.280 you've got this pulling suction that is moving the piston downward, 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.080 lifting the other end of this this lever up, and 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.000 that in turn was using it was actually activating the pump, 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.679 pulling the water out of the mine. And the the 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:42.600 way this would work is that once you had that 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.240 steam cool down, uh, the way they would cool it 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.200 down is actually inject water into the cylinder. So you've 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:51.439 got the cylinder, it's heated up, you've got the in 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.280 fact that heat was the cylinder was quite warmed. They 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:56.560 had to cool the cylinder down to condense the steam 0:23:56.600 --> 0:23:59.359 back into water. So the inject water into it helps 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:02.439 cool the steam down, pulls the piston down, and then 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:05.119 they would allow the water to heat up again. The 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:09.200 steam would slowly enter into this uh cylinder as gravity 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:11.920 was pulling the other end of the lever, the heavier 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:14.480 end back down again. That pulls the piston back to 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.960 the up resting place and steam would fill the cylinder again. 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:20.239 You'd have to cool it down again. You do this 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:23.520 over and over again. Now, if you're listening and you're thinking, wow, 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:26.000 that that sounds like that might not be terribly efficient. 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:29.080 You're right, because it meant that you had to keep 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.960 cooling and heating that cylinder over and over, which meant 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.080 that you had to continuously burn fuel so that you 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:39.840 could continuously heat the water to create this this section. 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:42.320 And furthermore, I have other people working to cool down 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:45.280 the cylinder. However, all of this was still more efficient 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:47.879 than housing an entire team of horses to do the 0:24:47.880 --> 0:24:51.119 same war right, right, And so it ended up actually 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:55.840 being such a useful device that they were used well 0:24:55.880 --> 0:25:01.000 after improved devices were made, so up until the nineteen yeah, yeah, 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:03.639 you know, it wasn't until like it was in the 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:07.399 late seventeen sixties when you would get a big improvement 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:11.080 over this design. But even then, even after that improvement 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:14.600 was made, these were very reliable pumps and have been 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:16.760 used for quite some time. You can actually see one 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:20.480 if you go to Dearborn, Michigan. There's the Henry Ford 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:24.360 Museum and they have on display one of Newcomen's actual engines. 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:26.320 So this is one of the ones that dates back 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:30.040 to the early eighteenth century, which I think is awesome. 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:33.280 I totally want to do a text stuff series where 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:36.240 we go to different museums and see and talk about 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:40.080 this kind of stuff. If anyone wants to invest. Yeah, 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:42.879 so hey, if you guys all think that's a great idea, 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:46.040 let us know and we'll pass those along to Discovery, 0:25:46.440 --> 0:25:48.600 because I don't know how I'm going to swing this 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:51.560 on my own other than you know, really working on 0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:56.639 my hitchhiking skills. Lauren's nodding. Okay, so anyway, that's great radio, 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:00.080 But no so so, like I said, this was not 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:02.679 terribly efficient because of the cooling and the heating of 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:05.280 that cylinder. Right, So, if you could find a way 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:08.480 of creating this vacuum to cool the steam down but 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.960 to not have to worry about heating and cooling the 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:15.320 cylinder itself, thus wasting fuel, you could make this a 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:19.600 much more efficient system. And, as it turns out, and 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:23.639 seventeen sixty nine, James Watt can put the plans for 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:26.200 this one. Now. He's the guy who often we credit 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:28.399 as the inventor of the steam engine. Though all you 0:26:28.440 --> 0:26:32.000 guys have been listening, you know that's not exactly true, 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:34.760 because he really just took this new Coomman engine and 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:37.240 added a separate condenser to it. Right, So, what he 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:40.320 did was he essentially added a separate chamber that connects 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:42.919 to the cylinder, and so the cylinder would fill up 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:46.320 with steam and then move into the separate chamber where 0:26:46.320 --> 0:26:48.920 it would condense, and still you would still get the vacuum. 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:51.800 But because you didn't have to worry about heating or 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.159 cooling the cylinder itself, you didn't have to use as 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:58.480 much fuel. And as a result, depending upon which source 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:01.200 you read, they say he didn't have to worry about 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:04.480 cooling the celinder, just let it continually exactly because we 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:07.560 knew when the boiler exactly, you didn't have to Yeah, 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:10.080 you didn't have to keep on burning fuel to take 0:27:10.320 --> 0:27:12.560 compensate for the fact that you had to use water 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:16.760 to cool it down. So according to some sources, that 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:20.320 would mean that you say, between fifty and sev of 0:27:20.400 --> 0:27:24.400 the fuel you would usually use to operate the steam engine. Well, 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:29.480 that's what made steam engines suddenly practical from a fuel standpoint. 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:32.439 So they had are even proven to be able to 0:27:32.480 --> 0:27:35.760 do practical work, but they weren't very efficient. They used 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.000 so much fuel that it became one of those questions 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:40.240 of well is it even worth it to invest in this? 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:43.439 Uh and then with this invention, it made the steam 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:47.720 engine something that was truly possible in lots of different applications. 0:27:48.280 --> 0:27:53.000 And that's when we really saw a figurative explosion and 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:57.159 steam technology. There were some literal ones. In fact, that 0:27:57.200 --> 0:27:59.399 was one of the things what was really concerned about. 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:04.320 He wanted to continue working in low pressure boilers, low 0:28:04.359 --> 0:28:08.399 pressure steam engines because he felt that any sort of 0:28:08.560 --> 0:28:11.920 high pressure application was far too dangerous to be practical. 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:16.919 And he spoke out, yea and uh. The thing was 0:28:16.960 --> 0:28:20.640 that in other areas of industry there were lots of improvements, 0:28:20.720 --> 0:28:24.280 like in machining and metalworking, so there were people who 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:28.800 were working on building stronger, more secure boilers and engines 0:28:29.200 --> 0:28:33.160 that could handle high pressure. What was just very cautious 0:28:33.200 --> 0:28:36.720 about the whole thing. So it was one of those 0:28:37.480 --> 0:28:40.360 the development of high pressure engines would wait for another 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:45.880 probably forty years or so. Um. But anyway, what stuff. 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:49.920 He became known as a genius in his own time. 0:28:50.040 --> 0:28:56.080 Everyone was crediting him with the creation of this magnificent technology. Um. 0:28:56.080 --> 0:28:59.320 I'm sure that he was happy to receive that. But 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:02.480 in the same or that when he created these improvements 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:06.560 to the newcoman engine, there was another fellow, Nicholas Kugno, 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:11.040 a French military officer, who developed a steam powered car, 0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:14.520 and it was designed to toe artillery pieces and it 0:29:14.600 --> 0:29:16.800 could only move it about two miles per hour, which 0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:19.800 is about three point two kilometers per hour, and so 0:29:19.840 --> 0:29:21.720 it was never really used. It wasn't really seen as 0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:25.120 practical the idea here because it wasn't. Yeah. I read 0:29:25.160 --> 0:29:29.320 about it being um it being displayed in Paris where 0:29:29.320 --> 0:29:31.160 they were running it and it ran into a wall. 0:29:31.520 --> 0:29:33.440 But since it ran to a wall two miles per hour, 0:29:33.520 --> 0:29:39.600 no one noticed. That's a true story. Um. Yeah, So anyway, 0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:42.360 it was. But it was an early example of a 0:29:42.440 --> 0:29:45.520 steam powered car, if you can call it that. It 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:48.760 really looked more like a like a long wooden dolly 0:29:48.840 --> 0:29:52.080 with a huge boiler on the end of it. Um. 0:29:52.600 --> 0:29:54.200 It certainly didn't look like a car the way we 0:29:54.200 --> 0:29:56.720 would think of a car today, But it was designed 0:29:56.720 --> 0:29:59.480 to tow artillery. Yeah. We will get into some actual 0:29:59.480 --> 0:30:04.200 steampowered cars very soon. Uh so sight that's when James 0:30:04.240 --> 0:30:09.320 Picard and Matthew Wassboro build a steam engine with rotary motion. 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:13.800 So this is using various levers and other devices like 0:30:13.800 --> 0:30:18.520 a crankshaft to transfer this reciprocal motion, which is that 0:30:18.640 --> 0:30:22.200 up and down motion of a piston, into a rotational motion. Now, 0:30:22.200 --> 0:30:24.880 those of you who listen to our transmission episode will 0:30:24.880 --> 0:30:27.000 know all about this, and that's why I'm not going 0:30:27.040 --> 0:30:29.960 to go over it again because that episode nearly broke us. 0:30:31.280 --> 0:30:33.640 It was about cars, which I don't know if you 0:30:33.640 --> 0:30:36.040 guys have picked up on this. I'm not a big expert. 0:30:36.440 --> 0:30:40.720 Neither of us are really gearhead should have grabbed Scott probably, yeah, anyway, 0:30:41.480 --> 0:30:46.240 but yes, it trans translated this reciprocating motion into rotational force. 0:30:46.400 --> 0:30:51.320 So that ended up being another important development, Um, although 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:54.040 it wasn't really used in a practical sense for a 0:30:54.080 --> 0:31:00.040 while longer. Um There's one had another terrific addition to 0:31:00.040 --> 0:31:02.440 to his engine, and that was three. He created a 0:31:02.480 --> 0:31:06.000 double acting engine, right right, Well, this was an idea 0:31:06.080 --> 0:31:09.000 that ends up being really important in steam engines later on, 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:12.440 although mostly used in high pressure engines not low pressure engines. 0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:14.800 The idea of being that you can you have a 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:17.840 cylinder that has valves on either end of the cylinder, 0:31:18.280 --> 0:31:21.719 and so as the piston is moving toward one side, 0:31:22.080 --> 0:31:24.680 steam is escaping out of that side and it's you know, 0:31:24.760 --> 0:31:27.680 it's increasing on the other side, right, and then once 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:30.440 it gets to the end, the valve switch and so 0:31:30.480 --> 0:31:32.720 the piston moves to the other side and steam is 0:31:32.760 --> 0:31:35.040 coming into one end and escaping out the other. Now, 0:31:35.040 --> 0:31:37.640 with Watt's designs, of course, we're talking about using that 0:31:37.760 --> 0:31:41.160 suction force, so it's the condensing that's pulling the piston 0:31:41.480 --> 0:31:44.280 from one side to the other. But later double action 0:31:44.360 --> 0:31:48.080 steam engines would actually use steam force to push the 0:31:48.120 --> 0:31:50.600 piston one side and then on the other side. In fact, 0:31:50.640 --> 0:31:56.200 that's how most of the locomotive steam engines used steam. 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:58.920 Um and man, I love those locomotives too, But then, 0:31:59.000 --> 0:32:01.240 you know, I think every kid who got to play 0:32:01.280 --> 0:32:06.280 with them was fascinated. Certainly people like Walt Disney became 0:32:06.680 --> 0:32:10.840 obsessed with them. I think that's a safe term. But 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:12.960 then we started seeing steam engines used in lots of 0:32:12.960 --> 0:32:15.120 different ways. We're getting up to the eighteen hundreds now, 0:32:15.200 --> 0:32:19.200 and that's really where the steam era takes off and 0:32:19.520 --> 0:32:24.520 you start seeing steamboats, paddle steamers, locomotives. In eighteen o one, 0:32:24.560 --> 0:32:27.080 a man named Richard trevithi it was an English miner 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:31.560 and engineer, built a steam powered locomotive called the puffing devil. 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:35.440 It could go on short trips, but only on short 0:32:35.440 --> 0:32:37.880 trips because he had trouble keeping the water hot enough 0:32:37.920 --> 0:32:42.000 to generate steam consistently. That actually was a real issue 0:32:42.040 --> 0:32:44.600 with a lot of steam engines, the idea of how 0:32:44.640 --> 0:32:47.840 do you how do you heat the boiler properly? And 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:50.080 I believe his engines were the first that we're using 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:52.800 steam to actually push pistons rather than the condensation in 0:32:52.840 --> 0:32:56.240 the vacuum to pulse exactly. Trevith was of the school 0:32:56.280 --> 0:32:59.720 of thought that high pressure steam engines their time had come. 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:02.920 It was safe enough, you could do it. What again 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:06.480 was not sold on this idea, but Trevor think certainly 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:08.880 thought that this was something that you could do. And 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:13.840 the early ones were still pretty inefficient. They weren't terribly fast. Um. 0:33:14.040 --> 0:33:19.640 He would eventually build a little locomotive for for amusement. 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:22.120 Really it wasn't meant as a form of transportation. It 0:33:22.200 --> 0:33:25.200 was called the catch me who can at a top 0:33:25.240 --> 0:33:27.479 speed of twelve miles per hour, which is about nineteen 0:33:27.560 --> 0:33:30.040 kilometers per hour. I think I think this was in 0:33:30.160 --> 0:33:33.880 display in London. Some track was already laid around the 0:33:34.000 --> 0:33:37.000 UK and the rest of Europe because horses would use 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:41.120 the track to pull pully tim pole cards along, right, exactly, yeah, exactiently. 0:33:41.280 --> 0:33:43.880 In fact, you have the birth of the locomotive is 0:33:43.920 --> 0:33:47.120 really an English thing. We think of it as a 0:33:47.280 --> 0:33:49.480 very American thing here in the United States because it 0:33:49.520 --> 0:33:52.760 was so defining of that era, as we really like 0:33:52.800 --> 0:33:54.920 to just take ownership of everything we do. I mean, 0:33:55.000 --> 0:33:59.640 you know, it's that wall is not so great China. Well, 0:34:00.040 --> 0:34:02.200 think we need to take another quick break because I've 0:34:02.200 --> 0:34:06.240 got the vapors. Not not really, it's just that's that's 0:34:06.240 --> 0:34:19.080 steam related, Okay bye. In eighteen o four, London brewery 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:22.800 engineer named Arthur Wolfe improved this high pressure boiler design 0:34:22.920 --> 0:34:26.680 through something called compounding, which uses excess steam from one 0:34:26.719 --> 0:34:29.240 piston to fire a second piston and then a third. 0:34:29.680 --> 0:34:32.480 This creates less heat loss in the system and winds 0:34:32.560 --> 0:34:34.600 up with you know, you have to burn less fuel, 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:37.960 which is great more efficiency again, making it more of 0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:42.879 a practical power solution. And uh, moving up to seven. 0:34:42.920 --> 0:34:45.760 That's when another big name and steam engines this someone 0:34:45.840 --> 0:34:50.279 Anyone who has followed the story of steamboats, anyone who's 0:34:50.280 --> 0:34:52.359 familiar with Mark Twain is going to know this name. 0:34:52.800 --> 0:34:56.480 Robert Fulton. He introduced the first steamship to provide regular 0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.480 passenger service in America. Average speed of the steamship was 0:34:59.600 --> 0:35:03.520 five miles per hour or eight kilometers per hour. Yeah. Well, 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:06.600 you know, if you don't have to paddle, it's fast enough. 0:35:06.960 --> 0:35:10.880 It's you know, it's it's uh. And again it's one 0:35:10.920 --> 0:35:13.400 of those things that another one those defining images in 0:35:13.440 --> 0:35:16.480 American history. You think back to things like, you know, 0:35:16.600 --> 0:35:18.799 like the Mark Twain stories, and they all have this 0:35:18.880 --> 0:35:23.719 sort of evocative image of the great steamship. Of course, 0:35:23.760 --> 0:35:28.560 Mark Twain was a steamship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um. And 0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:32.200 in fact, Mark Twain, that's a steamship term. It's actually 0:35:32.200 --> 0:35:34.880 a term for how deep the water is, which you 0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:36.839 would know if you ever have sailed on the rivers 0:35:36.880 --> 0:35:40.040 of America. In Disney World, just pay attention on on 0:35:40.080 --> 0:35:42.480 that boat, because they'll tell you all this. That's where 0:35:42.480 --> 0:35:46.319 I got it. So I'm citing my source, uh, Disney World. 0:35:46.320 --> 0:35:48.440 I was just there. I don't know if you know that. 0:35:48.440 --> 0:35:54.360 That's that's where he was. George Stevenson, he was another 0:35:54.360 --> 0:35:58.160 English engineer, and he built a steam locomotive to run 0:35:58.239 --> 0:36:01.840 on rails, yep, and it carried thirty tons of coal 0:36:02.239 --> 0:36:05.759 four d fifty feet uphill at four miles per hour 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:08.839 or six kilometers per hour, which doesn't doesn't sound like much, 0:36:08.840 --> 0:36:11.400 but that's a huge amount of weight to have to transfer, 0:36:11.440 --> 0:36:15.479 and it was a huge improvement over traffics version, which 0:36:15.480 --> 0:36:19.040 could haul about ten tons of iron about ten miles. 0:36:19.120 --> 0:36:22.399 So although it didn't go very far, it certainly had 0:36:22.440 --> 0:36:25.759 to carry a lot of stuff and up an incline, 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:28.920 so you know, it was a big improvement over taking 0:36:29.040 --> 0:36:32.000 like a super long route in order to avoid having 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:34.239 to go up an incline like that. UM Now at 0:36:34.239 --> 0:36:38.080 this stage the steam engines worked with this. Like I said, 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:40.960 the steam press is on either side where you've got 0:36:40.960 --> 0:36:43.320 the piston with the valves there. The valve will control 0:36:43.360 --> 0:36:45.760 where the steam can enter and where it can exit. 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:48.399 So the steam comes in one side. Now this case 0:36:48.440 --> 0:36:50.400 we do have the steam pressing right, so the steam 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:52.719 comes in on one side of the cylinder, pushes the 0:36:52.719 --> 0:36:58.000 piston across. The steam exits out as uh of one 0:36:58.000 --> 0:36:59.919 part of the valve while steam comes into the other 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:04.080 into the cylinder, the piston keeps that that seal steam 0:37:04.200 --> 0:37:07.120 tight and then the piston moves back across the way 0:37:07.160 --> 0:37:10.360 it came the first time. Uh, and you've got this 0:37:10.360 --> 0:37:14.680 this process of a stroke exhaust and then the second 0:37:14.680 --> 0:37:16.839 stroke and it's exhaust and it goes over and over 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:19.920 and over again. Meanwhile, you would have the piston attached 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:24.520 to some other form of device that would help, uh, 0:37:24.760 --> 0:37:27.920 move the whole project, whatever it happens to be. So 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:31.200 with a locomotive, it might be a lever that is 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:34.719 then connected to a wheel. So one move of the 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:37.120 piston would be a half turn of the wheel, and 0:37:37.160 --> 0:37:38.880 the move of the piston going back the other way 0:37:38.880 --> 0:37:41.000 it would be the other half turn. And that's where 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:43.640 you get that locomotive force where you can have the 0:37:43.680 --> 0:37:46.800 train moving down the track and having that steam escape 0:37:47.280 --> 0:37:51.759 is what gives the trains there choo choo sound. That's true. 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:54.400 So you know when you hear the sound of the 0:37:54.400 --> 0:37:58.200 steam escaping and it goes over and over. What's why 0:37:58.280 --> 0:38:01.080 kids called trains choo choose the thing? They do it anymore, 0:38:01.480 --> 0:38:04.520 or if they do, it's kind of that skew morphism thing. 0:38:04.600 --> 0:38:07.680 Because of course, you don't have many steam powered trains 0:38:07.719 --> 0:38:09.919 these days unless you go to Walt Disney World, where 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:13.160 you can write a train around Main Street, USA, and 0:38:13.640 --> 0:38:16.319 this podcast, strangely enough, is not brought to you by 0:38:16.640 --> 0:38:19.279 Disney World. No, no, I was brought to you by 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:23.359 Disney World, apparently, I believe. Usually on steam locomotives, it's 0:38:23.360 --> 0:38:26.440 called it it's called a crosshead. The the portion that 0:38:26.600 --> 0:38:29.520 links out from this piston, and that's going to be 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:32.080 connected to something called a drive rod, and then coupling 0:38:32.160 --> 0:38:34.160 rods are going to what going to be what drives 0:38:34.160 --> 0:38:36.440 the wheels. Yeah. I usually do have to have a 0:38:36.480 --> 0:38:40.240 couple of different elements in here to translate the motion properly, 0:38:40.360 --> 0:38:43.840 because otherwise, again you've got that reciprocating motion, which is 0:38:43.880 --> 0:38:47.120 just going in two directions. Right, it's either going up 0:38:47.120 --> 0:38:49.080 and down or left and right. However, you know, it 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:51.720 depends on your orientation and the orientation of the device. 0:38:52.160 --> 0:38:55.160 But that limits what you can do unless you use 0:38:55.280 --> 0:38:58.520 other gadgets to kind of translate that motion into something 0:38:58.560 --> 0:39:01.120 that can do useful work. I mean, unless you just 0:39:01.160 --> 0:39:04.560 need to open and close the door repeatedly, then then 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:06.640 you could just have a pole attached to it. But 0:39:06.680 --> 0:39:10.960 otherwise you would need something more more versatile. So by 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:14.879 eighteen twenty five, steam locomotives were starting to be used 0:39:14.960 --> 0:39:18.280 to haul passengers on a regular basis at that point. 0:39:18.640 --> 0:39:21.080 Before then, it was pretty much used in cargo, right. 0:39:21.080 --> 0:39:23.480 I think the very I think five was the very 0:39:23.520 --> 0:39:27.240 first ride of a passenger steam locomotive. That was George 0:39:27.239 --> 0:39:31.000 Stevenson's Locomotion number one. It carried some cargo and maybe 0:39:31.000 --> 0:39:34.319 about six hundred passengers or so, and that was that 0:39:34.400 --> 0:39:36.879 was its maiden voyage. I hear that everybody was doing 0:39:36.920 --> 0:39:41.560 a brand new dance now to do the locomotion. Okay, 0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:43.640 Laurence shaking her head again. So I guess I need 0:39:43.719 --> 0:39:47.759 to move on alright, So eight hundreds from all the 0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:50.040 way through eighteen eighty, we're gonna make a big skip 0:39:50.120 --> 0:39:51.560 unless you have something you want to add in that. 0:39:52.040 --> 0:39:54.040 Uh not really, no, I guess I guess I could 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:56.160 put in at this point that the popular kind of 0:39:56.200 --> 0:39:58.640 boiler that was being used at this time, and and 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:01.799 this is going to become in for safety reasons. The 0:40:01.800 --> 0:40:04.160 popular kind of boiler was a fire tube boiler, which 0:40:04.360 --> 0:40:07.360 basically consists of a tank of water perforated with furnace 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:11.440 pipes and the you know, the hot gases from generated 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:14.200 from the fire from the fire in these pipes that 0:40:14.239 --> 0:40:17.600 are going through this cylinder of water are what is 0:40:17.640 --> 0:40:19.880 heating the water. It's a pretty efficient way to do it, 0:40:19.960 --> 0:40:22.759 but it also means that the whole tank is under 0:40:22.760 --> 0:40:24.600 a lot of pressure. So therefore if at burst, it's 0:40:24.600 --> 0:40:26.680 going to lead to that big scary explosion that we 0:40:26.680 --> 0:40:29.200 were talking about earlier. Right. So the heating element here 0:40:29.200 --> 0:40:31.640 are these these pipes that run through the boiler. The 0:40:31.680 --> 0:40:34.839 water surrounds the pipes, the pipes get hot because of 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:37.920 the fires creating these hot gases. You also, by the way, 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:40.360 have to have something to vent the hot gases out of, 0:40:40.440 --> 0:40:44.120 so so you didn't just have steam venting out, you 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:47.320 actually had hot air hot gases venting out to based 0:40:47.560 --> 0:40:49.880 from whatever the heat source was. See, that was one 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:52.719 of the problems that earlier inventors had run into, was 0:40:52.719 --> 0:40:54.160 that they were trying to figure out a way of 0:40:54.200 --> 0:40:56.520 creating this hot water, and some of them were doing 0:40:56.520 --> 0:41:00.320 things like using a red hot iron uh inserted uneath 0:41:00.360 --> 0:41:03.600 the boiler. But that heat starts to dissipate, and once 0:41:03.640 --> 0:41:06.000 it does, you don't have power anymore. So it was 0:41:06.080 --> 0:41:08.319 only through creating something that would be allow you to 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:11.200 generate a fire and continuate generate. So even though we 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:13.879 talk about steam powered trains. Have you ever seen those 0:41:13.920 --> 0:41:17.120 movies where they're shoveling coal into a furnace, Well, you 0:41:17.200 --> 0:41:19.920 have to generate the steam, right, It's not the trains 0:41:19.960 --> 0:41:23.560 not running on coal. The coal is what's generating the 0:41:23.600 --> 0:41:26.960 heat in the fire. It's it's the fuel that creates 0:41:26.960 --> 0:41:29.400 the creates the heat that allows the water to boil, 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:31.520 that makes the train go, and the green grass grows 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:35.520 all around and around. So yeah, so moving up to 0:41:35.640 --> 0:41:41.600 eight Between eighteen eighty, steam engines are used in practically 0:41:41.640 --> 0:41:47.600 every major industrial application, and in fact really both figuratively 0:41:47.680 --> 0:41:51.839 and literally drive the industrial revolution. Uh. In eighteen eighty 0:41:52.000 --> 0:41:55.600 Charles A. Parsons invinced the first steam turbine. So now 0:41:55.600 --> 0:41:58.319 we're getting into a way of using steam to not 0:41:58.560 --> 0:42:04.399 just push something mechanically, but also generate electricity, which would 0:42:04.400 --> 0:42:09.000 become really important as well. Uh. In eight are actually 0:42:09.040 --> 0:42:12.520 really eighteen six is when we first start seeing steam 0:42:12.560 --> 0:42:15.560 powered cars in the United States, the Stanley Steamer being 0:42:15.680 --> 0:42:20.120 the popular model, also affectionately called flying teapots. Have you 0:42:20.160 --> 0:42:22.000 ever seen a picture of these? They really do look 0:42:22.040 --> 0:42:25.399 like horseless carriages. When you hear that term, it looks 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:27.839 like it's a carriage that's missing a horse in front 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:30.719 of it, and it's got one usually one lever that 0:42:30.840 --> 0:42:34.560 you use for steering, and that's it, and uh, you 0:42:34.760 --> 0:42:38.840 just uh, you know, god speed. They were really popular. 0:42:38.840 --> 0:42:42.520 They went in this early kind of period, more than 0:42:42.719 --> 0:42:47.120 sixty of them in the United States, and sixty that's 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:50.040 obviously a tiny number these days, but you're talking back 0:42:50.080 --> 0:42:53.560 then where only a small sliver of the population would 0:42:53.560 --> 0:42:57.200 have had access to it, both monetarily and just opportunity 0:42:57.239 --> 0:43:00.239 from opportunity's sake, you know, not everyone lived in in 0:43:00.280 --> 0:43:02.600 an area where they could get access to this. Also, 0:43:02.680 --> 0:43:05.560 keep in mind that these machines were usually used for 0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:09.520 intercity travel. It's not something that the idea of traveling 0:43:09.520 --> 0:43:15.040 across country really wasn't wasn't part of the automotive industry 0:43:15.040 --> 0:43:17.320 at that point, whether it was steam powered or gas 0:43:17.320 --> 0:43:20.399 powered or even electrically powered. We talked about electrical cars, 0:43:20.400 --> 0:43:25.120 and they predate the gas engine vehicles as well. Um, 0:43:26.000 --> 0:43:28.200 if you wanted to go across the country, you've got 0:43:28.280 --> 0:43:30.480 a train. You didn't you didn't drive your car at 0:43:30.480 --> 0:43:34.319 this time. But we get up to a sad time though, 0:43:34.560 --> 0:43:36.760 we're getting up to for those of us who happened 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:39.920 to like that. Cho choose. Yeah, as of about nineteen sixty, 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:42.439 we're going to see the end of the locomotive era. Yeah. 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:46.319 You don't see many places producing steam powered trains these days. 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:49.160 If they are, it's for some sort of amusement park 0:43:49.239 --> 0:43:52.520 or something along those lines. It's not meant as a 0:43:52.520 --> 0:43:54.920 means of travel. There are some steam powered engines that 0:43:54.960 --> 0:43:57.520 are still in operation in various places around the world, 0:43:57.560 --> 0:44:00.279 but they aren't really being produced because we have alternative now, 0:44:00.360 --> 0:44:03.000 all right. Certainly by the nineteen thirties, people had started 0:44:03.040 --> 0:44:06.640 to realize that internal combustion engines using gasoline as a 0:44:06.719 --> 0:44:10.719 fuel were much more efficient and cheap to use than 0:44:10.760 --> 0:44:14.320 these than these external combustion engines, which is what a 0:44:14.360 --> 0:44:17.600 steam engine is. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Um, So 0:44:18.440 --> 0:44:20.760 we start seeing this end of this era in around 0:44:20.840 --> 0:44:24.200 nineteen sixty, But it doesn't mean that we're no longer 0:44:24.280 --> 0:44:27.920 using steam engines. We still are, right right, partially because 0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:30.719 we have improved the kind of boiler that's used. Water 0:44:30.800 --> 0:44:33.680 tube boilers are kind of the inverse of that fire 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:35.839 tube boiler that I was talking about earlier. It's it's 0:44:35.840 --> 0:44:38.880 basically a furnace that's perforated with water pipes instead of 0:44:38.880 --> 0:44:42.000 being a water tank that's perforated with furnace pipes, and 0:44:42.360 --> 0:44:45.080 there's water inside of furnace. You've got tubes of water 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:48.280 inside of furnace and uh and yeah, so so only 0:44:48.360 --> 0:44:52.279 those tubes are under pressure and therefore it's safer overall. Right, 0:44:52.320 --> 0:44:54.120 there's less of a less of a chance for our 0:44:54.120 --> 0:44:58.279 catastrophic breakdown. Although again with valves proper valving you you're 0:44:58.560 --> 0:45:01.440 pretty safe most of the time. And yeah, back in 0:45:01.520 --> 0:45:05.600 two thousand nine, you know, way back then, a team 0:45:05.760 --> 0:45:09.320 of engineers built a car called the Inspiration, which is 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:13.000 steam powered high speed car uses a turbine engine, not 0:45:13.160 --> 0:45:16.640 a piston engine, steam powered, and it broke the land 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:20.800 speed record for steam powered vehicles. UM. The average speed 0:45:21.000 --> 0:45:24.719 was a breezy one forty eight miles power or two 0:45:25.560 --> 0:45:29.800 kilometers prower. That's fast. Yeah, you're being powered by steam. 0:45:30.120 --> 0:45:31.799 And I think I think that that is that's still 0:45:31.840 --> 0:45:34.600 the standing UH land speed record. I know that there's 0:45:34.640 --> 0:45:38.240 another team working on it. There's a US steam team 0:45:38.239 --> 0:45:41.880 that's working on building its own UH steam powered vehicle 0:45:42.040 --> 0:45:44.879 that they hope will break that record. But as far 0:45:44.920 --> 0:45:46.880 as I know, that has not happened yet as of 0:45:46.920 --> 0:45:50.200 the recording of this podcast. Yeah, and there is there. 0:45:50.200 --> 0:45:52.760 There are a few companies that are working on test 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:56.520 versions of steam powered cars. There's one called Cyclone Cyclone 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:01.040 Power Technologies, which is working with Raytheon on the defense 0:46:01.120 --> 0:46:03.759 contractor at the moment, and in fact, the the U 0:46:03.920 --> 0:46:06.839 S team is working on a high speed vehicle called 0:46:06.880 --> 0:46:09.200 the Cyclone. That's what the name of the one that 0:46:09.239 --> 0:46:12.520 they're hoping will break the records, the cycling. Yeah. Yeah, 0:46:12.560 --> 0:46:15.359 they're you know, they're producing these engines that would fit 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:19.000 in the you know, standard vehicle engine space. That's a 0:46:19.040 --> 0:46:21.279 big deal too. We didn't even mention that. But the 0:46:21.320 --> 0:46:24.480 steam engines of traditionally were very large because you had 0:46:24.480 --> 0:46:26.279 to have a boiler, You had to have something that 0:46:26.320 --> 0:46:28.920 could contain a lot of water to generate the steam 0:46:28.960 --> 0:46:31.320 you needed, and you know, you were venting that steam. 0:46:31.400 --> 0:46:34.960 So it wasn't like your recap capturing and reusing, and 0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:36.919 even if you did recapture it, especially with the old 0:46:36.920 --> 0:46:40.160 condenser models, even if you did recapture it, you were 0:46:40.160 --> 0:46:43.080 still losing some So it's it wasn't something that you 0:46:43.120 --> 0:46:45.239 could run indefinitely. You might be able to run it 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:47.040 for a long time, but you know that's one of 0:46:47.040 --> 0:46:50.440 those challenges is trying to miniaturize something like steam power, 0:46:50.520 --> 0:46:53.280 which uh, you know it doesn't work so well. Also 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:56.600 turns out to be a big part of the steampunk movement, 0:46:56.760 --> 0:46:59.960 this kind of idea of avoiding the miniaturization. You know, 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:03.319 you want these kind of bulky things that have lots 0:47:03.320 --> 0:47:07.640 of character to them. You know, they're shiny and brassy, unuseful, 0:47:07.760 --> 0:47:10.120 but really full of characters. Yeah, no, it's got lots 0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:12.640 of character. It's just looks like, Wow, you know, that's 0:47:12.640 --> 0:47:16.040 a great, uh steampunk version of a mobile device, and 0:47:16.080 --> 0:47:21.000 it only weighs seventy pounds and burns every time you 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:23.520 use it, right, Well, you know that would obviously you 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:26.240 would be much more frugal with your use. You wouldn't 0:47:26.239 --> 0:47:28.480 be picking up your smartphone every five seconds at dinner. 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:31.600 I'm speaking about my own personal behavior at this point. 0:47:32.000 --> 0:47:34.960 So yeah, there's still other companies that are developing steam 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:38.480 engines for power generation, usually for places in the world 0:47:38.520 --> 0:47:41.200 that are not on a power grid and therefore do 0:47:41.280 --> 0:47:45.520 not have access to electricity. There's one called a uniflow Power, 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:50.040 which is unveiled a generator back in steam generator, steam 0:47:50.160 --> 0:47:54.240 powered generator, I should say, didn't generate steam. You generated 0:47:54.239 --> 0:47:57.680 power through steam. Um. But it was meant to help 0:47:58.040 --> 0:48:01.640 communities that are not direct connected to power grids to 0:48:01.640 --> 0:48:04.280 to deliver electricity to parts of the world that otherwise 0:48:04.280 --> 0:48:07.160 would not have it. So we're seeing steam still being 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:10.480 used in applications today. Absolutely, And I mean, you know, 0:48:10.520 --> 0:48:12.839 I want to point out that most of the electricity 0:48:12.920 --> 0:48:16.840 generated is technically steam general. Sure, I mean that's what 0:48:16.920 --> 0:48:20.040 nuclear power is, that's what a coal power plant is, right, Yeah, Yeah, 0:48:20.080 --> 0:48:22.760 we're talking you're burning a fuel that is generating steam 0:48:22.800 --> 0:48:27.919 that is turning usually yeah, exactly. Even things like the 0:48:28.000 --> 0:48:30.480 plasma waste converters. I've talked about those in the past 0:48:30.760 --> 0:48:32.919 where they've talked about using the excess heat in order 0:48:32.960 --> 0:48:35.920 to generate steam that would turn turbines and be kind 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:38.600 of a co located with a power generator. So you'd 0:48:38.600 --> 0:48:42.400 have a trash disposal and power generation unit all put together. 0:48:42.640 --> 0:48:45.080 But it's using steam to do that. It means plasma 0:48:45.160 --> 0:48:49.759 to to break down the trash power a level of 0:48:49.960 --> 0:48:52.799 efficiency of of how hot you can get water, how 0:48:52.880 --> 0:48:56.120 quickly with how the work? Yeah, and then how can 0:48:56.160 --> 0:48:58.719 you how can you take something that normally would just 0:48:58.760 --> 0:49:01.680 be considered a waste eye product and turn it into 0:49:01.920 --> 0:49:05.080 useful stuff. You know, heat. We often think of all, 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:07.360 we lost a lot of our energy through heat. But 0:49:07.400 --> 0:49:09.080 if you can recapture that heat and make it do 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:11.000 work like you can with steam power, then you're in 0:49:11.040 --> 0:49:13.000 good shape. So yeah, that kind of wraps up our 0:49:13.040 --> 0:49:16.120 discussion about steam engines. Uh, this was a fun one 0:49:16.160 --> 0:49:18.680 to do. It's totally another one of those look backs 0:49:18.760 --> 0:49:22.000 on on the technology of days of your that are 0:49:22.040 --> 0:49:26.759 still relevant today. I hope you guys enjoyed that classic episode. 0:49:27.120 --> 0:49:30.480 If you have suggestions for future topics of current episodes 0:49:30.480 --> 0:49:33.080 of tech Stuff, send it to me via Twitter. The 0:49:33.120 --> 0:49:35.880 handle is text stuff hs W and I'll talk to 0:49:35.920 --> 0:49:43.640 you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart 0:49:43.760 --> 0:49:47.479 Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit 0:49:47.520 --> 0:49:50.640 the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:49:50.680 --> 0:49:52.040 listen to your favorite shows.