WEBVTT - The Delightful History of Steam Technology 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.480 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:18.040 there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there this 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.840 stuff you should know? What was that? That was? I 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.319 don't know. I don't know a little extra something on top. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.880 I guess little hot sauce. Yeah to Lula. Uh So, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.400 we just got back from our wonderful tour of the 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.680 United Kingdom in Ireland and it could not have gone better. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.920 And you may be hearing more about this in the future, 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.720 or we may never speak of it again. That's true too. 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.560 Oh before we go though, um, before we go, Yeah, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.080 we're still we're just starting out. Before we get started. Um, 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.400 I started my own little personal Chuck Charles W. Chuck 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.120 Bryant Facebook page as a public figure. Yeah, I've got 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.000 one of those two you do. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.480 it's largely neglected. I should probably pay attention to it. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.479 Huh So basically, you say, I have a haunted ghost 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.440 house that I feel free to walk by it right now, 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:19.600 and my house is populated by me, and uh go 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.480 like the page and I'm gonna be sharing a little 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.200 more personal stuff like my opinion on things and sharing music. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.000 I like photos of your bare knees, photos of my knees, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.640 photos of my animals, just a little more stuff like 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.640 that because I get yelled at now when I do 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.200 anything semi personal stuff. You should know page. Yeah, I 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.200 think I'll go and have in mind too. Yeah. So 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.480 if you want a piece of me as gross as 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.560 that sound, look for Charles W. Chuck Bryan on Facebook 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:55.720 and uh, it's gonna be a party, it is. That's 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.320 the logo. Um, I do I neglect my Facebook page, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:04.280 but I am fairly active on Twitter. Twitter thing. Yeah, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:10.640 it's a Josh underscore, um underscore Clark, of course it is. Yeah, 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.399 that's that. I do the same thing on that though. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.720 It's like I'm a little more opinionated and share more 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.919 personal stuff. We're a lot of real human beings exactly. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.480 We don't have to be brand ambassadors. We can take 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.320 our sashes off, all right. So that's all for announcements 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:39.480 for me. So, Chuck, have you ever encountered water? Yeah? 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.040 So you know that there's three states of matter, and 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.399 water is a great demo of these different states, right, Yeah, 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.000 I encounter every morning when I washed my horse. Yeah, 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.839 well you should share pictures of you washing your horse 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.960 on your Facebook page. Um, what's your horse's name? Uh 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:02.239 ganho ganev nice man. There's just a few hundred people 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.000 who know what you're talking about. Um. So when you're 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.320 washing gancho and that nice water is like coming down 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.120 all over his horsey body, it is in its liquid state, right, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.760 And when it's in its liquid liquid state, it's density 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.160 is different than when it's in its solid state. It's 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.280 more dense in its solid state. E g. Ice r 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.040 I E ice. Sorry, But then if you really heated 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.600 it up and turn it into steam, it would turn 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.240 into water vapor, right, yes, Then then it's in its 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.600 gaseous state and it's less dense. Those molecules could not 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.119 get further apart. They probably could. So while it's density 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:46.600 is smaller and ice, it actually takes up less space, right, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.520 It's correct. So if you put that water in a 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.720 space and you froze it, it would shrink inside the space. 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.280 If you expanded it into water vapor, it would take 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.680 up more space. And as it takes up more and 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.920 more space, it's pressure increases. That's right. And if you 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.760 could only be clever enough to figure out a way 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.360 to harness that pressure. My friend, you would have harnessed 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.080 what's called steam power. That's right, and that is the 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:16.440 show for today. And uh Robert Lamb of Stuff to 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.400 Blow your mind wrote this one how steam technology works 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.240 on our website How stuff Works. It's a good one. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.000 Robert can write a fine article that guy. Uh So, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.960 let's go back in time a little in the old 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.640 way back machine steam powered one. Uh yeah, today it is. 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.280 Uh so it might take a little longer to get 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.240 these coal fires burning and sound different. But Jerry, it's 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.000 hard at work over their shoveling coal throwing the levers. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.520 So let's go back. Uh we're gonna need a lot 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.599 of cold Jerry, because we're going back all the way 0:04:48.960 --> 0:05:00.160 to a D seventy five shovel faster Jerry, how out 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.520 a smile? Oh, it's just about to say, you'd be 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.720 a wonderful uh whip guy for for the coal shovelers. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.440 But not if you're asking him to smile, because then 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:14.839 it turns into a Broadway show. How about a smile? 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.119 Then the next song is called how about a smile? 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.000 And the cold shoveler singing, Yeah, that's not bad. Actually 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.280 I'm picturing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom all 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.160 of a sudden, Yeah, were they shoveling coal? No, they 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.960 were mining. Okay, so I guess in a way, they're 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.360 shoveling coal, but they were getting out of the ground. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.440 They were extracting it rather than depositing it into a fire. 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.719 That was all wrong. So let's go back to and 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:52.520 a true hero named Hero, the Great mathematician Hero. He 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.480 was writing books on mechanics. He was thinking a lot 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.919 about air and payback he us, and way back in 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:07.760 he actually conceived of steam as an engine in a 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.000 way that we'll see came back to roost a bit, 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:14.880 back to roosts at the right. It left for a 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.920 while like a chicken, and then it came back and roosted. Yeah, exactly. Uh. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:20.680 He didn't have the technology to pull it off at 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.919 the time, but what he thought about was a hollow 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.080 sphere with these bent two tubes coming out the side, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.400 and then fill that that thing with water. Let's say 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.919 it looks like a football with arms. Fill up that 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.840 football with water, put it over a fire, and eventually 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.520 that water is gonna boil. It's going to turn into water. 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.359 Vapor inside and it's gonna come out those arms and 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:47.520 it's gonna spin that little football and its perfectly thrown spiral, 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.320 or it's gonna go spin around in an axis like 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.560 Curly on his shoulder on the on the floor from 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.200 the Three Stooges. Yeah, but it's attached to something over 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.000 the fire. Yeah, exactly, so it's spinning, spinning. Um. He 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.920 called that thing in a Leo pile. And he actually 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.200 had a number of different ideas and inventions too, theoretical 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.320 ones using steam. One was a steam powered bird and 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.360 this would have been about the right time for the 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.680 Clash of the Titans. Remember that little robot steam bird 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.720 in there? Uh the first movie, Yeah, the original one 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.160 with Harry Hamlin. Yeah, I mean that's basically this guy 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.960 is the one who came up with that boy. That 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.320 Medusa really scared me when I was here, and I'd 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.400 completely avoided that remake because it looks so bad. Yeah, 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.840 I was thinking about that when I was like, oh wait, 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:39.240 that was a Clash of the Titans, and I thought 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:44.280 about the remake Clash of the Titans. Nobody's actually they're 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.520 not making these movies as like an homage to a 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.920 great movie. They're doing it because they're like, uh, we 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:52.920 don't have any ideas, so we're just gonna poke your 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.000 nostalgia and and hopefully get a few bucks out of 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.160 you and disappoint you and probably ruined the original one 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.480 for you. That's true. But while I do love nostalgia. 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.280 Is evidence in our show on Nostalgia, my nostalgia poke 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.240 button as a cover over it, so when people go 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.760 to poke it, they just get rebuffed. You should get 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.040 one of those ones that shock people when they should. 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.680 But I have to raise that cover to allow my 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.440 button to be pushed. So how do you I mean, like, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.720 how did that cover get raised? I have to allow it, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.560 you know, I have to want to dive into the 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.520 pool of nostalgia. You can't just come along and be like, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.640 oh look another red dawn poke button. You know, did 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:40.160 that ever get made? Yeah? Okay, so Hero right, yeah, hero, 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.439 Hero comes up with this thing. He was very much limited, 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.520 and this would be the case for hundreds tens of centuries. 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:54.160 Um that steam power was the theoretically far more advanced 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.400 than practical material science. Yeah they were. He was way 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.000 ahead of his time. Yeah, I mean steam that the 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:07.319 power you can harness from steam is practically unlimited by 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:13.240 the depending on the materials that can hold the thing. Right, 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.559 if you have material that can hold the infinitely dense 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.880 amount of steam or infinitely pressurized pressurized amount of steam, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.520 you could run the world, my friend. But we don't 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.360 have that, and Hero definitely didn't have it. He basically 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.400 could just draw it and say this will be great someday. Yeah, 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.880 which was great. I mean, that's that's how things get made. 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.520 He was just ahead of his time, like by about 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:43.960 six years. He was a futurist. Uh So flash forward 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.200 will rev up the machine again and we'll put her 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:57.840 along to sixteen o six. We're in Italy now, and 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.960 one that Giovanni Batista de la Porte, the of Naples, said, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.880 you know what, I've got some theories about steam too, 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.480 and I think what we can do is actually create 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.280 a vacuum. So if we take that water that's steam 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.760 and it's in a closed container, it's going to increase 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.640 pressure in there, like we're talking about. So if we 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.000 condense it back down to water by cooling it in 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.000 that same chamber. Because they hadn't quite figured out that 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.760 you should do this separately, which we'll get to uh. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.240 He said, that will decrease pressure in in theory, it'll 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:34.079 create a vacuum, it'll create a pull. Right, they went genius, Yeah, 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.440 that's great. In the French of course, said let's see 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.400 how we can apply this to cooking, and they did, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.199 oh yeah, yeah. Within them, I think about seventy years 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:48.120 a guy named Denipe Papin who was not related to 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.360 Jacques Pepin. I wonder why I heard that name, but 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:56.199 may have been who was Jacque Pepin, very famous French chef. Okay, right, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.520 great guy, I couldn't I thought you were talking about 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.079 Mario Tally. No, that's Italy. This is France. Right. They 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.760 basically took this idea and they said, surely there's a 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.480 way to use this for cooking, and Dinny Popan created 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.840 what is essentially the first pressure cooker. Yeah, the name 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.080 is so great, the digester or engine for softening bones. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.720 It would extract like proteins and fats and all that 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:23.840 stuff from the bones and leave the bones brittle, so 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.520 you can turn the bones into bone powder and get 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.800 all the good stuff from it and cook with that. Right, yeah, well, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.720 I'm not sure though. He ended up attaching a piston 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.920 essentially to it. Why did he do that as a 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.760 pressure release valve? Okay, yeah, alright, now that that makes sense, right, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.920 So he added basically the world's first pressure relief valve 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.120 to the world's first pressure cooker. Yeah, the first steam 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.040 powered piston. Like he didn't know it yet, he was 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.080 laying the groundwork for an engine. Yeah. That's definitely one 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.959 thing that emerged from researching this, Chuck, is that, like 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:02.560 the history of steam power is definitely built on the 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.000 backs of earlier people. That's neat you can trace it 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.960 all back to one guy. Yeah, who's like, go forth 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.840 and make this. Do you know what struck me was 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.360 I was researching all these great men doing these things, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.160 and I thought, how much further would we be along 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:23.240 in the world if women, all throughout antiquity just could 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.280 do whatever they wanted as well? Yeah, and contribute themselves. Yeah, 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.760 Like they literally cut off half of society and said 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.240 you just go do this and that that's valuable to 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.920 two raise families and to you know, cooking clean and 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:38.520 do all the things that women were forced to do 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.679 back then. But they could also do other things. I bet. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:44.640 I mean they were doing other things. And I'm not 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.959 trying to say that they weren't making advances, but they 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.480 certainly taking it that way. They weren't allowed to go 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.360 into the science labs. No, but you make a good point, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:59.400 like if if raising a family is an extremely important pursuit, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.079 which I think we both agree it is, would society 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.320 be as far as it is now if men and 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:11.319 women had been equally involved in pursuing science and nobody 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.640 was raising the family. Yeah, Like, what two hundred years ago, 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:16.320 there's a lady who could have figured out a cure 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.600 for cancer, but in her family like no, no, no, 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.960 you you scrubbed that thing and turned that butter wonder 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:31.120 and she just muttered to herself, like I cure you anyway. Uh. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.400 And necessity as a mother of invention is the other 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.640 thing that really came to mind, because all these advancements 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.920 usually came along because they wanted to do something like specifically, well, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.960 almost every time there was an advancement, and definitely material science, 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.160 there was somebody who had invented a new steam thing 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.880 that was limited by the the poor materials available at 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.640 the time. When the new materials came along, they just 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.760 immediately used it for the steam invention that had been 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.200 drummed up a hundred years but four yeah, you know, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.200 so it just constantly was advancing. Now I think I 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.440 have just bungled my message so poorly that people are 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.000 gonna say, chuck, there were plenty of women of science 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.000 in the early days. So to make up for that, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.800 we're gonna have to do a podcast on the early 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:21.400 pioneers of science who are women? Alright, I pledged to 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:23.840 do that now. But my message was pure, you know 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.600 what I'm saying. Anybody who doesn't get that, sometimes I 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.120 don't talk so good, which is funny because it's your job, right. 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.240 All right, So seventeenth century, we're going forward in time 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.080 a little bit more, and over in England where we 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.120 just got back from, they had a timber crisis because 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.960 they were they were advancing. They were building so many 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.480 things made out of wood, uh, namely ships and of 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.040 course homes and things. Uh. And they were in those 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.040 homes they need a lot of firewood. So you still 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.840 needed the wood to build ships and things. But they 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.000 found out, hey, we can use coal for fires at least. Yeah, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.480 we're running low on timber, so we need to allocate 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.760 it smartly. Yeah, so let's use coal, which was great, 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:09.960 but to get more coal, you have to dig deeper, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.720 and to dig deeper means it's gonna be wetter. You're 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.560 gonna hit the water table eventually. And so eventually this 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.400 all led to a problem, which was, Hey, we're down 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.720 in this coal mine now and it's full of water. 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.480 How can we rectify this? Right? So necessity once again 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.960 pops up. Everybody just stood around thinking for about fifty years. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.520 Everything came to halt, and then finally was a woman 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.480 in the background going, I'll tell you how to do 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.080 this the student name. Finally a man spoke up and 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.800 everyone listen, that's right. The guy in named Thomas Savory. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.440 He was a military engineer. He had come up with 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.120 something that he called a miner's friend, right, which I 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:51.840 don't know if that's the best name for it, but 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:59.120 maybe it was. So his miner's Friend was basically, it's 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.840 it's really neat. So it's very tough to describe this 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.320 stuff from here on out. Every time we describe something, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.640 you're gonna get lost. So just go look up a 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.920 diagram of what we're talking about helps and it definitely helps. 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.040 For sure, it helped me big time. Basically, what it 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.840 was was there was a pot of boiling water. And 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.320 in this pot of boiling water there the steam would 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.640 be created. And a pot I mean an enclosed pot 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.440 with like pipes coming out but valves keeping it shut, right, 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.280 and they you would create steam and this the steam 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.560 would be transferred into another chamber with a pipe that 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:35.880 was going down into the to the water that you 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.840 wanted to get out of the ground. Okay, okay, you 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.120 would introduce steam into this right, and then you would 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.280 introduce cold water into that steam filled chamber and it 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.120 would suddenly condense the water, create a vacuum, and that 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.320 vacuum would pump the water out of the ground. Then 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:57.160 you had another pipe that would siphon off the water 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.000 from that chamber because there was a non return valve. 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.120 Once the water came up, it couldn't go back down. 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.879 That was the key. And then they would pump the 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.760 water out of that tube that pipe and then do 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.159 the whole process over again. Yeah, and it worked pretty well. 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.119 He didn't sell a ton of them to the mining 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.600 It didn't become the miner's friend like he thought. What 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.000 it really became was the rich person who wanted to 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.520 garden friend this. Let's pump our swampy es stayed out 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.840 friend pretty much. And the reason why is because to 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.120 to run it effectively and safely, you could only get 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.439 about of water out. If you're pumping water of a 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.080 five foot mine, then then you had to have one 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.000 of these huge setups everyt and be pumping up to 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.359 a reservoir that eventually pumped it up out of the mine. 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:48.760 So there's no way you could do that. Plus, every 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.600 one of these setups had to have people running the valves, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.280 like all the valves and things were operated manually, and 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.240 they had a pretty bad reputation for blowing up. Well 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.199 that too, right, but it was a really it was 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.000 almost this guy wanted to sell it and change the 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.240 mining industry. He didn't, but he did end up creating 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.760 a scientific and historical proof of concept. Yeah, and well, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:13.320 you know what, let's take a break and we will 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.080 come back and pick back up with a couple of 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:41.959 other brilliant dudes who advanced on those inventions. Alright, so 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.240 was the miner's friend. I don't know why it's so 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.320 funny to me. Uh. And just about fourteen years later, 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.760 in seventeen twelve, there was a blacksmith named Thomas Newcoming 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.960 and his little buddy John Kelly, who was his assistant, 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.440 a plumber and glassblower. I get the feeling like everybody 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.280 back then, blue glass, I just knew what you're doing. Yeah, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.480 make your own window. Like today how everyone? Uh what 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.960 do is something everyone can do today? Um? Drive a car? Yeah, 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:18.760 or complain on social media. That's stop posting personal stuff. Yeah, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.399 that's the glass blowing of today, posting on social media, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.280 complaining on it. I think you might be right. So 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.879 he was a glass blower and plumber. His assistant was 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.040 and um, they said, you know what, let's create a 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.320 better system. It's more efficient. He took it was called 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.320 the Newcoming Engine. I guess Callie as an assistant, getting 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.520 didn't get his name in there. I would have lobbied 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.720 for the new Callie or something, maybe combined the names. 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:47.480 It's clever, but newcoming. No, it's my name, assistant. So 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.639 they took Savori's uh separation of the boiler and then 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.120 added Poppins steam driven piston, and all of a sudden 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.840 they had the Newcoming Engine. Well they no, they took 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.440 the boiler and put it combined it together, right, so 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.280 like you had you had this piston and it was 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:12.879 heated and then cooled, and then heated and cooled, so 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.520 it's like combined into one. Yes, but it was a 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.560 piston that was moving up and down right. Well yeah, 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.240 but it was a piston that was moving up and 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.560 down via this thing that looks kind of like a seesaw. Yeah. 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.600 I was connected to that, right, And on the other 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:28.760 end of that seesaw was the pump. So one end 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.280 is a piston moving this thing up and down like 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.000 the seesaw. On the other ends the pump. Yeah, And 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.040 what it's really doing is it's pulling it down on 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.720 either side. Yeah, it's not pushing ever, like one side 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.400 pulls making it one side go up. On the other 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.080 side poles making the other side go up. Right, So 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:49.359 you've got a um, you've got that that steam being 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.800 generated and it's pushing the piston up and then you 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.600 hit it with some cold water and the vacuum is created. Right, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:21:00.000 And this thing could go through twelve cycles a minute. Hey, 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.240 not bad, It's true, and um, it was. It was 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.399 beyond improved concept, Like this thing actually really worked. You 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.960 could use it to do all sorts of work with Yeah, 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.480 And it was in hundreds of minds all over Britain, uh, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.080 and in Europe. So people were like digging into this 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.920 thing called the engine for the first time. Yeah, it 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.560 was pretty amazing. But what happened was with everything, these 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.400 engineers start to say, you know what, let's improve on this, 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.720 let's improve the efficiency with the pump, let's improve these cylinders. Uh. 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.040 You get better iron along the way, stronger iron. And 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.679 this newcoming engine is just kind of refined over a 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.080 period of years, right, just from people tinkering with it. Right, 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:42.880 it's working better and better. And there was one guy 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.399 whose name you'll probably recognized. His name is James Watt. 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.160 I think he was born in England, but he made 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:54.160 his name in Glasgow, Scotland. Yeah, my new favorite country. Yeah, 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.480 it's a great country. I think his his I think 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.040 his name was James the game change or what. Yeah, 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:02.879 if he was a boxer, that's what he would have 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.760 been called. Although he took he took the Newcomban engine 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.520 and changed it back closer to the miner's friend though, 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:15.440 because the new coming combined the um the the boiler 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.879 with the condenser and he separated him out again. What 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.920 he figured out was if you just keep the piston hot, right, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.920 the piston chamber hot and you have a separate condenser, 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:31.560 you're gonna use less energy keeping the condenser cool and 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.960 the piston hot. Because one of the dumb things about 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.560 the Newcomban engine and the reason why it took so 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.160 long to go through these cycles so where you could 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:41.919 only do twelve a minute, was because when when it 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.359 was hot and the steam rose, when you hit hit 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.040 it with that cold water, it cooled off and a 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.000 vacuum was created. You had to wait for the thing 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.439 to heat up again to get the steam. If you 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.320 had the cool water over here and the steam over here, 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:58.000 you would keep the hot side hot and the cool 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:02.040 side cool. Dlt it us and you could hit him. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.280 You could use them to hit the the piston as 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.240 often as you wanted, and it really really improved. Um 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.840 it's efficiency. Yeah, like the engine is really starting to 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.919 take hold now and hum like an engine should. So 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.840 he partners up with a guy named Matthew Bolton. Um, 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.399 I'm not sure now spelled differently than Michael. There's a 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.080 U in there. Michael's just b O L t O 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:30.960 N right. Well, the this guy's is the British spelling. Oh, 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.280 so he could be a distant relative. You never know. 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:38.240 I like to think, so, uh, whatever happened to Michael Bolton? 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:42.440 You guarantee he's still touring and making records and stuff. 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.199 Guys like that. They don't go away. They might not 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.560 be in the international limelight and more, but they're still 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:50.920 doing what they do. There's always a home in Branson, 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:56.080 Missouri or Vegas, all right. So what has partnered up 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:59.959 with Bolton? Um they are making it more fuel efficient 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:04.520 engine now with that separate condenser. And this led to 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.440 to other inventions, one called the flyball Governor and one 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:13.200 called the double acting Engine. The flyball Governor is so difficult, 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.399