Abstract
In Chapter 6, we discussed the development of steam engines during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These engines enabled industrialization by making available the vast stores of energy contained in coal, wood, and oil. By burning fuel, chemical energy is converted into heat energy, which in turn can be used to boil water to produce steam. By letting the steam expand against a piston or a turbine blade, heat energy can be converted to mechanical energy. In this way, a steam engine can power machinery.
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Further Reading
R.V. Bruce, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, In: C.W. Pursell, Jr., ed., Technology in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), pp. 105–116.
J.J. Flink, Henry Ford and the Triumph of the Automobile, In: C.W. Pursell., Jr., ed., Technology in America ( Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989 ), pp. 172–173.
M. Brower, Cool Energy: Renewable Solutions to Environmental Problems (Cambridge, NIA: MIT Press, 1992 ).
R. Rhodes and D. Bollen, The Need for Nuclear Power, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2000, 30–44.
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Cassidy, D., Holton, G., Rutherford, J. (2002). The Electric Age. In: Understanding Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Contemporary Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_11
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