Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century

Spencer Herbert , “On the Genesis of Science”, Essays—scientific, political and speculative (3 vols., London, 1858–74) i.

Whewell William , A history of the inductive sciences (3 vols., London, 1837) i, 253.

See, for example, Farrington B. , Francis Bacon—philosopher of industrial science (London, 1951).

Mumford Lewis , Technics and civilisation (London, 1934). Mumford's division of the history of technics into Eotechnic, Palaeotechnic and Neotechnic phases is somewhat too rigid to be acceptable.

Weber Max , General economic history (Chicago, 1950) 368.

Ravetz J. R. , Nature, clxxxix (March 11, 1961), 859–860.

Waters D. W. , The art of navigation in England in Elizabethan and early Stuart times (London, 1958).

Aristotle , De generatione et corruptione, Book 1, 2, 316a 5.

Singer C. Holmyard E. J. Hall A. R. Williams T. I. , A history of technology (5 vols., Oxford, 1954–58).

Derry T. K. Williams T. I. , A short history of technology (Oxford, 1960).

Klemm F. , A history of western technology, trans. Singer D. W. Mrs (London, 1960).

Daumas M. , A history of technology, iv, 409–415.

Galileo , Two new sciences (Dover edition, New York, 1952), 1–152.

Fitton R. S. Wadsworth A. P. , The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830 (Manchester, 1958).

Smiles Samuel , Iron workers and tool makers (industrial biography) (London, 1863) 43.

Taylor F. Sherwood , A history of industrial chemistry (London, 1957) ch. 13: Clow A. Clow N. , The chemical revolution (London, 1952).

The works of Farey, Smiles, Muirhead, etc., written in the nineteenth century are still, in many ways, the best studies in the history of the steam engine. There are some excellent papers on the subject to be found in the Transactions of the Newcomen Society. For a short modern study, see the writer's Steam power in the eighteenth century (in press). The economic and social aspects of the development of steam power are discussed in, for example, Roll E. , An early experiment in industrial organisation (London, 1930) and Lord J. , Capital and Steam power (London, 1923).

Swift Dean , “A Voyage to Laputa”, Gulliver's travels.

Stowers A. , Transactions of the Newcomen Society, xxx (1955–56), 250 sqq.

Parent A. , Histoire de l'Académie (1704) 144, 432.

The pressure of water on the blades was assumed to be proportional to the square of the velocity v of the stream, since doubling the velocity also doubles the quantity of water impinging on the blades. If the velocity of the blades be u, then the pressure becomes (v—u)² and the power (v—u)²u, with a maximum when u=v/3. The loss of kinetic energy in the inelastic collision was not of course taken into account.

Desaguliers J. T. , A course of experimental philosophy, xi (3rd ed., London, 1763), 424, 532.

Thus it would be very wrong to imagine the hydraulic engines of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as limited to variants of the waterwheel. Great ingenuity was exercised in inventing novel forms. Similarly, in the case of the steam engine invention was not confined to the familiar beam engine: Steam wheels, buoyancy engines, concentric drum (or annular cylinder) engines, reaction machines and many other ingenious forms were tried out.

Carnot N. L. M. , Essai sur les machines en general (Paris, 1783) and Principes funda mentauz de l'equilibre et du mouvement (Paris, 1803).

Atwood George , A treatise on the rectilinear motion (London, 1784) 380.