IS THIS SOME KIND OF A CRUEL JOKE?

Blog number 412 **** 07 September, 2010

I'm reading this book see, and I learn that a steam engine doesn't get its power from the pressure of the steam like we've always been told, but rather from the vacuum created by squirting cold water into a chamber of steam, condensing the steam. The use of a vacuum rather than pressure was discovered quite by accident, due to a leak in a faulty soldering that let cold water into a chamber filed with steam.

Two Englishmen - Newcomen and Calley, had a working steam engine and while trying to get the cylinder down to room temperature after the steam had been used, water was accidentally sprayed into the chamber, causing the steam to condense, creating a vacuum that caused such an increase in power that it broke the chain attached to the piston, broke the bottom of the chamber and even broke the top of the furnace used for heating the steam.

The author then goes on to describe when Watt got the idea to improve upon this method of using steam (I was taught that Watt was the inventor of the steam engine, but evidently he was not, yes?) The author even mentions that the old story about Watt watching the lid of a tea kettle bobble must be a false urban story because see, Watt was interested in the vacuum side of steam power, not the pushing side.

So this morning I look up Steam Engines, Operation Of, on the Internet because I wanted to see how they actually put this idea to work on a locomotive and I find that not only do they use steam pressure, but a double steam pressure so that the piston is PUSHED by steam both ways. No vacuum. None. Nil.

"Whaaaaa!" I thought, "I've just been convinced that a vacuum is the most powerful source of steam power, I've also been convinced that Watt was only interested in improving the vacuum side of the steam engine dialog, and now I find out that all that has been thrown away in favor of the lowly pressure side. Are you kidding me?"

By the way, if you're interested, the title of this fascinating book is,"The Most Powerful Idea In the World."

I'm still a little bummed about the whole thing.