The following is from Baidu Encyclopedia
1. Children who like to inquire about their roots
Watt was born in 1736 in the town of Glenog in the west of Scotland, England. His grandfather He was once a teacher, teaching mathematics, surveying and navigation. His father was originally a shipbuilding technician. Later, he ran shipbuilding and construction industries, worked as an instrument manufacturer and businessman, and once served as the local administrator of a small town. Influenced by his ears and eyes, Watt has learned various crafts from his father since he was a child. He is ingenious and has been exposed to and understood a lot of technical knowledge since he was a child, and has developed an interest and habit of independent thinking and exploring mysteries. His family environment played a certain role in his future climbing to the peak of technology. Watt was physically weak since he was a child, and when he reached school age, he still couldn't go to school. It was several years after school age that he went to school in the town. In school, he didn't like to fight with the children and only liked to meditate alone. There is a well-known legend about his childhood: One day, Little Watt saw a pot of water boiling at home, and the steam made the lid pop. This commonplace phenomenon aroused his great interest. He stared intently at the beating lid and the steam coming out, pondering the mystery. I watched it for more than an hour. Because Watt often silently observed many phenomena that he was unfamiliar with and did not understand for a long time, people in Kunming called him a "lazy boy." In fact, it was this curiosity and inquiring spirit that later guided him to explore the mysteries of the world and climb the peaks of science. When he was 13 years old, he became interested in geometry. At the age of 15, he finished reading such a profound book as "Principles of Geometry". Later he entered grammar school and excelled in mathematics. Due to poor health, he dropped out of school before graduation. However, he persisted in teaching himself multi-disciplinary knowledge such as astronomy, chemistry, physics and anatomy at home, and he also taught himself several foreign languages. When Watt was 17 years old, he became an apprentice in a clock shop in Glasgow. He studied hard in his spare time and further mastered many scientific and technological principles. When he was an apprentice, he once made compasses, theodolite, etc. with high technical requirements. At the age of 21, he came to the University of Glasgow as a teaching aids laboratory technician, responsible for repairing and manufacturing instruments. He further became familiar with some of the more advanced mechanical technologies of the time.
2. Inventions that promoted the entire world
Human beings’ understanding and utilization of steam has gone through a long historical process. As early as the second century BC, the ancient Greeks built an engine that used the reaction of steam injection. In 1690, Frenchman Barbie first invented the first piston steam engine, but he failed to make a practical steam engine. In 1698, a British technician named Seles invented a practical piston-less steam engine. This kind of machine was used in mines and was called the "Friend of the Mine". However, due to the limitations of materials and technology at the time, it could not be promoted. In 1712, an unknown ironmonger named Newcomen invented the first practical steam engine. The steam engine was a technological innovation that changed the course of industrial development. Newcomen and his plumber's assistant Cowley accidentally discovered that passing compressed steam into a cylinder could create a partial vacuum, so that atmospheric pressure could push a piston in the cylinder. Such a steam engine requires a large cylinder to be heated and cooled alternately. Of course, the efficiency is extremely low, and burning coal is very wasteful. However, Newcomen's steam engine was originally used in coal mines, where the price of coal was very low and it was cost-effective to use, so it was quickly adopted widely. However, the large waste of coal was a serious shortcoming of that kind of machine, especially when it was used elsewhere. The cost was too high, so there was an urgent need to improve the efficiency of the steam engine. Around the mid-18th century, British craftsmen Smeaton and Watt each improved Newcomen's steam engine according to completely different ideas. The improvement work of both of them was still basically carried out within the technical tradition, without using any scientific abstraction. Smeaton later became the chairman of the Civil Engineers Association (Smeaton Association). He adopted purely empirical methods, testing prototypes one by one in an orderly manner, without changing the basic design, but only changing the size of each component. In this way, he doubled the efficiency of the Newcomen steam engine. Watt suddenly came up with his solution while out for a walk one Sunday in 1765. His idea was that the main flaw of the Newcomen steam engine was that the cylinder had to be cooled with cold water for each stroke, which consumed a lot of heat and left most of the steam unused effectively.
If the steam is forced into another container outside the cylinder to be cooled, the cylinder can remain hot throughout the cycle. It avoids heating and cooling the cylinder for a while, which naturally saves considerable coal. Watt raised his own funds, rented a basement, bought the necessary equipment, experimented repeatedly, and experienced countless setbacks and failures. With the help of workers, he finally invented a condenser that was separated from the cylinder and solved the problem of manufacturing precision cylinders and pistons. To solve the technological problems, oil lubrication of the piston and additional insulation layer outside the cylinder were adopted to create a single-action steam engine. After continued experiments, in 1782, a double-action steam engine with connecting rod, flywheel and centrifugal governor was invented, making a new practical steam engine. This double-action steam engine has a valve installed so that the pressure of the steam can be used to push the piston forward and backward. And with the help of connecting rod and flywheel, the linear motion of the piston is changed into circular motion. In order to keep the steam engine running at a constant speed, he connected a centrifugal speed regulator to the steam inlet valve to automatically adjust the amount of steam inlet. This device was the earliest automatic controller used in technology. He designed a condenser separate from the cylinder to conduct high-temperature steam out of the cylinder and cool it so that the main cylinder could maintain a certain temperature. At the same time, he improved the precision of the cylinder and made the pistons and valves smooth and tight. Watt's idea is very novel in principle, and the efficiency improvement is amazing. Produced and sold through a very successful and famous partnership with Bolton, a machine builder in Birmingham, Watt's steam engines were quickly accepted by users and were soon widely used in other industries besides coal mining, promoting The great development of urban manufacturing industry. By 1800, there were 500 Watt steam engines steaming in various places in the UK, and their number has grown rapidly since then. Watt's steam engine became a truly international invention. It effectively promoted the industrial revolution in Europe in the 18th century and pushed world industry into the "steam age." But Watt's steam engine still relied on atmospheric pressure, so it was necessarily large and heavy (sometimes called a "stationary engine"). By the end of the 18th century, such stationary machines were commonly used in factories to propel machines; because of their larger hulls, early steamships could also be propelled by atmospheric steam engines. However, railway locomotives are not suitable. They must have smaller high-voltage models. That smaller steam engine was designed in 1800 by another Englishman, Trevithick.
3. A genius inventor who will go down in history
In April 1784, the British government granted Watt a patent certificate for manufacturing a steam engine. Marx once commented: Watt's great genius is reflected in the specification of the patent he obtained. He did not describe his steam engine as an invention for special purposes, but as an engine commonly used in large industries. . Watt enjoys a high status in the academic and scientific circles in Britain and continental Europe. In 1784 he became a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 1785 he became a member of the Royal Society of London. In 1808, he became a member of the French Academy, and in 1814, he was elected as one of eight foreign academicians of the French Academy of Sciences. The scientific community in various countries recognizes Watt as the most famous one among them. Because of such an epoch-making great invention, Watt suddenly became a big shot with both fame and fortune from a poor and unknown person. He received seventy-six thousand pounds in royalties over eleven years. In order to protect his patents, he became somewhat academic in his later years. He often filed lawsuits in court to prevent and suppress other people's inventions, and even prohibited his assistants from experimenting with using steam to launch four-wheeled vehicles. This is the tragedy of a scientist and the imprint of his time and society on him. Despite this, he was still a great inventor. He focused his entire life on the invention of the steam engine, which lasted for more than 20 years. The people will never forget his great contribution to science, technology and social progress.
IV. The last days of a great man
Watt also made many other inventions before semi-retirement. For example, he invented a new method of measuring distance using a telescope, a new Transmission printing, improvements to the oil lamp, the steam roller press, and the method of coloring mechanical drawings that continues to this day. In 1800, Watt's patent and Boulton's cooperation expired, and he retired in the same year. But their partnership continued into the next generation, with Matthew Boulton continuing to work with James Watt Jr., while absorbing William Murdoch as a partner, ensuring the company's continued success.
After his retirement, Watt traveled to France and Germany with his second wife and purchased a house in Wales. In 1819, 83-year-old Watt passed away peacefully at home. He made outstanding contributions to human science during his lifetime, and people of all countries miss him. In 1824, on the fifth anniversary of his death, the London public erected a monument to him in the famous Westminster Abbey. Watt studied hard throughout his life and devoted himself tirelessly to scientific undertakings. Based on the achievements of his predecessors, he invented the steam engine and made an epoch-making contribution to the development of human science and technology. In order to commemorate Watt, the great inventor, people set the commonly used unit of power as watt, or watt for short.