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History of Technology Videos 160 videos

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History of Technology 1: Newcomen and Watt 35 Views


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Description:

Newcomen and Watt both built impressive engines, but at the end of the day, only one was victorious. The other one ended up listening to Adele and eating ice cream. Tough break.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

here's our very important lesson of the day digging really deep holes on an [Teacher talking to students and a big hole appears on an island]

00:08

island at sea level is a bad idea and we can thank the Brits for that they

00:14

dug really deep holes on an island at sea level to make their coal mines and [Person digging hole]

00:18

as a result many of those mines filled with water

00:21

well Britain's entire economic boom almost died a gross, soggy death and all

00:27

that precious coal energy would have gone to waste [Man throws litter in trash]

00:30

well in order to get the coal, England's machinist needed to do some hard

00:33

thinking well Thomas Newcoman born in 1663 wasn't a stereotypical genius it

00:41

was almost 50 had no formal education and worked as an ironmonger well it's

00:46

about all we know about the guy oh and one other thing

00:49

he started the Industrial Revolution and no big deal well either by chance or a

00:54

miraculous brainstorm Newcomen determined that steam was the key to [Newcoman thinking about mechanical process]

00:59

pumping water out of the mine well, in 1712 Thomas Newcomen built the

01:05

world's first functioning steam engine to pump water out of coal mines [Water in a coal mine]

01:10

Steam engines aren't that complicated first the water is boiled until it

01:14

becomes steam then steam is cooled back down so it turns into water why well,

01:20

the cooling process creates a vacuum which can pull a piston and power a

01:24

machine well if we repeat the water steam water process over and over again [Boy and girl on a see-saw]

01:29

and we can create a seesaw motion that does real work unfortunately we can't

01:34

create a seesaw with ... well seesaw aside, Newcomen's

01:38

engine was important 1500 of them were built by 1800 and they saved [Hand saves mining industry from falling off cliff]

01:44

the mining industry well they had some heating problems though Newcomen's

01:48

engines were huge and weighed a bajillion pounds... no cross-country trips

01:53

or long walks on the beach for them they were stuck exactly where they were built

01:58

they also weren't very efficient it cost about forty five hundred dollars in coal [Lots of coal stacked together]

02:02

every year and sure that might be what you pay to rent a nice apartment in San

02:07

Francisco these days but this was back in 1800 when a set of bedroom furniture

02:12

cost like five dollars they also had about five and a half horsepower today [Horse falls to the floor and vaccum sucks up horses]

02:16

there are vacuum cleaners with more horsepower than that well, Newcomen

02:20

engines also provided only one kind of motion the arm rock up and down as

02:24

steam was condensed machines like water wheels and windmills turned continuously

02:29

which produced a much smoother steady amount of power but luckily for everyone

02:33

people have always liked to tinker upon existing technology enter James Watt [Person smashes laptop with hammer]

02:39

super genius oh and enter his super rich buddy Matthew Boulton

02:44

who had the cash to make his dreams come true well Watt immediately realized the

02:48

main inefficiency in Newcomen's design the engine spent loads of coal [Man shovelling coal]

02:53

energy heating up the steam and then it wasted that energy by spraying itself

02:58

with cold water to cool down again.. Watt was like it why can't this steam just

03:04

cool in a different chamber then we don't have to heat up the same chamber

03:09

over and over again genius well he also threw a wheel on there because the [Watt throws a wheel]

03:14

wheels look cool and they create consistent energy output well Watt's

03:19

engines produce three times as much power as Newcomen's engine, that meant

03:24

we can use 1/3 less coal to power them it's all about the dollar dollar bills [Stack of 100 dollar bills]

03:28

right in this case well it's all about the british british pound well the

03:33

machines were still heavy but they weren't so expensive to run that they

03:36

had to be right next to a coal mine Watt engines were put to work pumping bellows

03:41

grinding flour and beating paper pulp, well pretty soon they applied steam

03:46

power to transport and in 1830 they succeeded in running a steam-powered [Steam train travels from liverpool crown street to manchester]

03:50

train from Liverpool for Manchester well by this point Newcomen's invention was

03:55

forgotten and probably a little depressed will be alright there

03:59

Newcomen's engine and dust off that Adele album... [Newcomen engine listening to Adele album]

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