Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

264 results found

steam engine

(Encyclopedia) CE5 Steam engine steam engine, machine for converting heat energy into mechanical energy using steam as a medium, or working fluid. When water is converted into steam it expands, its volume increa...

Watt, James

(Encyclopedia)Watt, James, 1736–1819, Scottish inventor. While working at the Univ. of Glasgow as an instrument maker, Watt was asked to repair a model of Thomas Newcomen's steam engine. He devised improvements t...

turbine

(Encyclopedia) CE5 Types of turbines turbine, rotary engine that uses a continuous stream of fluid (gas or liquid) to turn a shaft that can drive machinery. A water, or hydraulic, turbine is used to drive electr...

Trevithick, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Trevithick, Richard trĕvˈĭthĭk [key], 1771–1833, British engineer and inventor, b. Cornwall. He is known as the father of locomotive power because of his invention (1800) of the high-pressure st...

engine

(Encyclopedia)engine: see diesel engine; internal-combustion engine; steam engine; rotary engine; automobile. ...

marine engine

(Encyclopedia)marine engine, machine for the propulsion of watercraft. The earliest marine power plants, reciprocating steam engines, were used almost exclusively until the early 1900s. In later ship construction t...

Newcomen, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Newcomen, Thomas nyo͞oˈkəmən, nyo͞okŭmˈən [key], 1663–1729, English inventor of an early atmospheric steam engine (c.1711). It was an improvement over an earlier engine patented (1698) by Th...

Fitch, John

(Encyclopedia)Fitch, John, 1743–98, American inventor, b. Windsor, Conn. Fitch began (1785) work on the invention of the steam engine and steamboat and secured soon afterward the exclusive right to build and oper...

locomotive

(Encyclopedia)locomotive, vehicle used to pull a train of unpowered railroad cars. Richard Trevithick, a British engineer and inventor, built and operated (1803–4) the first successful steam engine locomotive f...

Heron of Alexandria

(Encyclopedia)Heron of Alexandria hērˈŏn [key] or Hero, mathematician and inventor. The dates of his birth and death are unknown; conjecture places them between the 2d cent. b.c. and the 3d cent. a.d. He is beli...
 

Browse by Subject