Jason Crawford

So all of the major innovators in steam engines, it seems, had some contact with scientists or mathematicians who understood the relevant theory and helped them in their work.

Now, yes, of course, thermodynamics came along later.

It's traditionally held to begin in the 1820s with Sadi Carnot.

Thermodynamics came along to understand the workings of these heat engines and their cycles and ultimately to help optimize them.

But, you know, that sort of came along later for, you know, efficiency and power and that kind of optimization.

So just from this case study, we start to see some general patterns.

Science comes along and identifies some key concept, a key phenomenon that can be exploited by inventors.

Inventors come up with a machine that does some useful, performs some useful function, and maybe whose operating characteristics are not completely described by the science we have so far.

And then more science comes along to explain the workings of the machine and let us optimize.

And note, by the way, that, so this pattern, it's not exactly always like this every single time, but this general, you know, this general pattern is common.

Note, by the way, that the invention of the heat engines led to the field of thermodynamics in two ways.

One, it gave science a new phenomenon to study, these engines.

But also, it gave motivation to explore this particular corner of the universe.

These engines are useful, and optimizing them would be economically useful.

But to come back to this concept of the epistemic base, you need that epistemic base.

You need to know about the vacuum and about air pressure.

If not, what do you get?

Well, you get things like Hero's Engine, also known as the Aeola Pile.

This dates from antiquity, like the first century or something.

I don't remember exactly when.