Society Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Society - Assignment Example The invention of the steam engine accelerated industrial revolution in Europe and later the entire world. However, although the intended purpose of this invention was met, there were other side effects due to the invention, and all this will be discussed in this write up. Keywords: Steam Engine, Invention, Science, Society, Inventor, Industrial Revolution, History of Steam Engine The power of steam is given credit for its earlier and current application in the power industry. Long ago, steam power made a lot of difference in industries, it still does. Its history is dated back to the first century. There were a lot of life challenges that required innovations to reduce the human labour and increase production. Miners during the 18th century faced a lot of challenges relating to the mining industry; they had to look for the ways of overcoming these obstacles. Their effort for minimizing challenges led to the introduction of steam energy to pump water from deep mines; this slowly trans formed to the fully developed steam engine (â€Å"Industrial History: The History of the Steam Engine,† 2013). Before the introduction of steam, power was obtained through wind, animals, and water. The steam engine was the first form of power generated by human beings (â€Å"A Brief History of Steam Power,† n.d.). Steam engine invention is not credited to one single individual, every inventor put in some small effort and with time, there was an improvement. One of the important principles used in the development of the steam engine was the principle of condensation of water vapor so that it could create a vacuum. In the steam engine, water and water vapor are the key ingredients, â€Å"work is done by the pressure which the substance exerts while its volume is undergoing change† (Ewing, 2013, p. 2). Historical Development of Steam Engines The historic development of the steam engine defines the beginning and the progress of the steam engine invention. It started with the need to have more power to solve the issues that were at hand. First, there was a lot of cold, people wanted to get warmth therefore they had to invent fire, as life went on, there were other developments in the industrial sector, for example for glass makers, there was a lot of firewood to be used in these glass industries, and since there were large forests around, the firewood was to be used to provide heat in the furnaces. As the needs increased, requirements for fuel also increased to meet the requirements of the increasing operations. Coal was then invented; a furnace that generated higher temperatures and used less fuel was invented by Abraham Darby (â€Å"A Brief History of Steam Power,† n.d.). Pumps were then needed to drain the coal mines. During the 1600’s, a German scientist called Otto Van Guericke invented the first air pump; this was after his discovery of gas as the third matter. He realized that he could remove air from a glass globe, leaving behind an empty space called a vacuum. Later on, he discovered static electricity and abandoned his work on pumps and vacuums, with this, he was already setting up some pace for the invention of the steam engine, although he had no idea about it. The progress that he had already made was enough for Denis Papin to pick up the idea about a piston and cylinder. His idea was that if air