Jason Crawford

So there are feedback loops.

The relationship is not one way.

It is reciprocal.

I am not, by the way, talking about the obvious fact that science requires the invention of instruments, such as the microscope, the particle accelerator, etc.

Those are ways in which science depends on technology.

But that's even a little too obvious.

I'm talking about something more subtle.

Okay, this is the summary of kind of what I'm talking about.

We'll spend most of the time elaborating on these points.

To understand this, let's go into a case study.

Let's talk about that quintessential invention of the industrial revolution, the steam engine.

Pretty much defines the era.

Now, again, it's been said that thermodynamics was not needed to invent the steam engine, and this is quite true.

But what was needed was another science or another field of science, specifically the scientific concepts of air pressure and the properties of the vacuum.

So very briefly, the way the early steam engines work.

So all steam engines have a piston and steam is pushed into the piston.

The early steam engines.

So the very first working steam engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712.

This is, I believe, a replica or model of it from the British Science Museum.

And the way it worked was you had a big piston.