13
votes
Accepted
Napoleon I and Fulton: Steamship rejection story real?
As Alex correctly noted, the story is about a submarine, not a steamboat (your source is just wrong).
The story is discussed in detail in the Wikipedia article Nautilus.
Here are the key paragraphs:
...
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8
votes
Napoleon I and Fulton: Steamship rejection story real?
The thing that Fulton tried to sell to the French (and after their refusal, to the British) was not a steamship but a submarine equipped with a "torpedo". What Napoleon really said, and ...
- 44.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Was the steam engine really known in ancient Egypt?
Like Mauro I suspect that your sources make a conflation. The earliest surviving description of a steam engine is in Pneumatica by Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria, who calls it aeolipile after the Greek ...
- 69.5k
3
votes
Accepted
Why did most steam locomotives use simple expansion?
This question was originally posted to test the limits of what is on and off topic. I was going to eventually post an answer, but I see we have two answers. In my opinion, both answers dance around ...
- 2,058
3
votes
Why were the first steam engines “atmospheric engines”
The best answer to that question is the following book:
The steam engine of Thomas Newcomen
by L. T. C. Rolt, J. S. Allen
1977
Moorland Pub. Co. ; New York : Science History Publications,
To ...
- 31
2
votes
Who invented the steam engine: Newcomen or Watt?
Practical steam power predates both Watt and Newcomen. Neither one invented it.
Taqi al-Din, an Ottoman, described a rotary steam thing that rotated a barbeque spit. This was in the year 1551. ...
- 851
2
votes
Was the steam engine really known in ancient Egypt?
To answer the "why" part of your question: In Greek and Roman antiquity there was no economic incentive to produce labour-saving devices due to the ready availability of slave labour. The ...
- 3,345
2
votes
Was knowledge derived from the scientific method required to build commercial steam engines?
This is an extended set of comments.
To be sure, the first known steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria in
1-st century AD. It was not "commercial", of course but this has nothing to do with ...
- 44.6k
1
vote
Was knowledge derived from the scientific method required to build commercial steam engines?
Humphry Davy said of James Watt: “Those who consider James Watt only as a great practical mechanic form a very erroneous idea of his character; he was equally distinguished as a natural ...
- 5,396
1
vote
Who invented the steam engine: Newcomen or Watt?
There is a Hellenistic Egypt "aeolipile" described by Heron of Alexandria from ~300BC to ~100AD, which beats Taqi al-Din (born 1526 AD) by no less than ~1400 years.
References:
https://www....
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