Inventions
Introduction
Modern world is run on the inventions of thousands of scientists and inventors. And among the most important aspects of our civilization are ease of movement of cargo and people, and ease of communication over long distances. The subject of this essay discusses two critical inventions which kick started the modern industrial civilization and made it possible for a global society to to communicate and exchange goods. Steam engine and radio are still being used in various forms in our society and their importance is evident from the revolution they brought about.
Although steam powered toys and gadgets have been made for a few hundred years at least, it was the invention of a steam engine capable of producing continuous power which made steam engine the biggest source of power in the nineteenth century.
James Watt, its inventor, made radical improvements on earlier designs by other people. The earlier designs uses to heat and cool the cylinder and could rarely provide with rotary motion. They were mostly used as power pumps and their life cycle was extremely limited. This was mostly due to the alternative heating and cooling of the engine cylinder which reduced lifetime of the cylinder. The most important change that Watt made was to include a separate condenser in the engine. This resulted in a more energy efficient and longer lasting engine. Also, Watt radically improved the engine to make it more capable and eventually his designed engines could produce rotary motion. By 1776, his steam engine was ready to power the industrial world.
Radio
Scientists have known about invisible radiation waves for a long time. Numerous works and researches on this subject came to their theoretical peak with James Clerk Maxwell's prediction of existence of electromagnetic waves in 1865. However on the inventors' side of electromagnetic waves, people had been toying with such apparatus for about fifty years at that time. Soon after Maxwell published his work, people began to find a way to utilize electromagnetic waves to communicate over long distances.
Guglielmo Marconi, at that time twenty years old, started experimenting with radio waves at home. He built a lot of his equipment by himself and eventually succeeded in ringing a bell from a distance without the use of electrical wire. Soon afterwards he began experimenting with larger and larger equipment at his family estate in Bologna, Italy. At the end of 1895, he was able to detect radio signals from about two miles. In less than seven years, he had improved this range to over two thousand miles. Radio telegraphy was being used to ships and cargo steamers to relay weather information and news updates by 1905. And in some ships, daily newspapers were being printed.
Comparison of Watt and Marconi as inventors
James Watt was a mechanical engineer who improved upon earlier designs of steam engines to make them more adaptable for the versatile needs of industrial revolution. Even after his invention had made him one of the richest inventors at that time, he continued to improve it.
Guglielmo Macaroni was an Italian electrical engineer who started experimenting with radio equipment after he read about works of Nicola Tesla and other scientists. He incorporated inventions of other scientists in his work and made them better in some cases.
Both of these inventors’ works show that inventions are not produced in a vacuum. In the words of Issac Newton, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" ("BBC World Service | Learning English | Moving Words").
References
"BBC World Service | Learning English | Moving Words". Bbc.co.uk. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016.
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea In The World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Print.
