Watt

“ In the domain of pure science Watt claims recognition not only as having had ideas greatly in advance of his age regarding what is now called energy, but as a discoverer of the composition of water. Writing to Joseph Priestley in April 1783, with reference to some of Priestley's experiments, he suggests the theory that “water is composed of dephlogisticated air and phlogiston deprived of part of their latent or elementary heat.” It difficult to determine the exact meaning attached to these antiquated terms, and to say how far Watt's suggestion anticipated the fuller discovery of Cavendish. ”

“ For electrical and scientific purposes the unit of power employed is called the watt. The watt is the work per second done by an electromotive force of 1 volt in driving a current of 1 ampere, and is equal to 10 million ergs or 1 joule per second. One horse-power is 746 watts or nearly 3/4 of a kilowatt. The kilowatt-hour, which is the unit by which electrical energy is sold, is 3.6 million joules or 2.65 million foot-pounds, or 366,000 kilogrammetres, and is capable of raising nearly 19 ℔ of water from the freezing to the boiling point. ”

“ Dame Nature confirms it; and the swelling vapour shews a determination to be uppermost, in spite of James Watt, or Mr. Gitty; and will, before compelled to leave its habitation, drive into the open air every drop of water which served to confine it. This, my Lord, I am persuaded will be quite sufficient to shew the impossibility of cleansing the condenser or vacuum in this way. For the air or vapour must here expand itself with a force more than equal to the atmospheric pressure, before one breath can be discharged. ”

“ The description of latent heat which gave the writer the clearest idea of it, and at the same time a much-needed reminder of the fact that Watt was the discoverer of the practically constant and unvarying amount of heat in steam, whatever the pressure, is the following by Mr. Lauder, a graduate of Glasgow University and pupil of Lord Kelvin, taken from "Watt's Discoveries of the Properties of Steam."
It is well to distinguish between the two things, Discovery and Invention. The title of Watt the Inventor is world-wide, and is so just and striking that there is none to gainsay. ”

“ Who shall doubt, after finding this secret source of force in water, that some future Watt is to discover other sources of power, or perchance succeed in utilising the superabundant power known to exist in the heat of the sun, or discover the secret of the latent force employed by nature in animals, which converts chemical energy directly into the dynamic form, giving much higher efficiencies than any thermo-dynamic machine has to-day or probably ever can have. ”

“ You are familiar with a watt and have an idea of its magnitude: think, for example, of a 15-watt or a 150-watt bulb. A watt is a unit of power; it is the rate at which (electrical) work is being done.
Figure 26 High power is demonstrated as a laser beam blasts through metal chain.
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The joule is a unit of energy and can be thought of as the total capacity to do work. One joule is equivalent to 1 watt-second, or 1 watt applied for 1 second. But it can also mean a 10-watt burst of laser light lasting 0.1 second, or a billion watts lasting a billionth of a second. ”

“ Watt.
(a) The practical unit of electric activity, rate of work, or rate of
energy. It is the rate of energy or of work represented by a current of
one ampere urged by one volt electro-motive force; the volt-ampere.
It is the analogue in electricity of the horse power in mechanics;
approximately, 746 watts represent one electric horse power.
Ohm's law, taken as C = E/R, gives as values for current, C and E/R, and
for electro- motive force C R. In these formulas, C represents current
strength, R represents resistance and E represents electro-motive force. ”

“ Watt's invention and all it has led to is only a step on the way to harnessing the forces of nature to the service of man. Do you doubt that other inventions will work changes even more sweeping than those which the steam engine has brought?
Consider a moment. The problem of which Watt solved a part is not the problem of inventing a machine, but the problem of using and storing the forces of nature which now go to waste. Now to us who live on the earth there is only one source of power—the sun. ”

“ In our very best and largest engines, the waste found by Watt to constitute three fourths of all heat supplied has been brought down to ten per cent., a fact which well exemplifies the advances made since his time of apprenticeship by himself and his successors of this nineteenth century. ”

“ Then a watt being the product of electro-motive force by current
strength, we get the following values for rate of electric energy, of
which the watt is the practical unit: (1) E2/R -- (2) C*E -- (3) C2 * R.
The equivalents of the watt vary a little according to different
authorities. Ayrton gives the following equivalents: 44.25 foot pounds
per minute--.7375 foot pounds per second--1/746 horse power. These
values are practically accurate. Hospitalier gives .7377 foot pounds per
second. Hering gives .737324 foot pounds per second, and 1000/745941
horse power. ”

“ Black's fame rests upon his theory of latent heat; Watt's fame as the discoverer of the total heat of steam should be equally great, and would be no doubt had his rôle of inventor not overshadowed all his work. ”

“ Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, upon his death-bed, hears that the Watt patent has been sustained, and is for the time restored again to interest in life. He whispers that he "could not help rejoicing at anything that benefited Jamie Watt."
The Earl of Liverpool, prime minister, stated that Watt was remarkable for
the simplicity of his character, the modesty of his nature, the absence of anything like presumption and ostentation, the unwillingness to obtrude himself, not only upon the great and powerful, but even on those of the scientific world to which he belonged. ”

“ A new world had sprung forth in Watt's brain, for nothing less has the steam engine given to man. One reads with a smile the dear modest man's deprecatory remarks about the condenser in after years, when he was overcome by the glowing tributes paid him upon one occasion and hailed as having conquered hitherto uncontrollable steam. ”

“ We meet one stranger, and stranger he remains to the end of the chapter. We meet another, and ere we part he is a kindred soul. Magnetic attraction is sudden. So with these two, who, by a kind of free-masonry, knew that each had met his affinity. The Watt engine was exhaustively canvassed and its inventor was delighted that the great, sagacious, prudent and practical manufacturer should predict its success as he did. ”

“ A Kilowatt.—Now, in electricity, remembering that the height of the water corresponds with voltage in electricity, and the size of the pipe with amperage, if we multiply volts by amperes, or amperes by volts, we get a result which is indicated by the term watts. One thousand of these watts make a kilowatt, and the latter is the standard of measurement by which a dynamo or motor is judged or rated. ”

“ It is not, therefore, only Watt the inventor, Watt the discoverer, but also Watt, the manual worker, that stands forth. As we shall see later on, he created a new type of workmen capable of executing his plans, working with, and educating them often with his own hands. Only thus did he triumph, laboring mentally and physically. Watt therefore must always stand among the benefactors of men, in the triple capacity of discoverer, inventor, and constructor. ”

“ Boulton was deeply interested, and expressed a desire that Watt should visit him at Soho. This he did, on his return from a visit to London concerning the patent. Boulton was not at home, but his intimate friend, Dr. Small, then residing at Birmingham, a scientist and philosopher, whom Franklin had recommended to Boulton, took Watt in charge. Watt was amazed at what he saw, for this was his first meeting with trained and skilled mechanics, the lack of whom had made his life miserable. The precision of both tools and workmen sank deep. ”

“ He recognised in Watt at their first interview, not only the original inventive genius, but the indefatigable, earnest, plodding and thorough mechanic of tenacious grip, and withal a fine, modest, true man, who hated bargaining and all business affairs, who cared nothing for wealth beyond a very modest provision for old age, and who was only happy if so situated that without anxiety for money to supply frugal wants, he could devote his life to the development of the steam engine. ”

“ She was a Scot of the Scots and a storehouse of border lore, as became a daughter of her house, Muirhead of Lachop.
Here, then, we have existing in the quiet village of Greenock in 1736, unknown of men, all the favorable conditions, the ideal soil, from which might be expected to appear such "variation of species" as contained that Pg. 10rarest of elements, the divine spark we call genius. In due time the "variation" made its appearance, now known as Watt, the creator of the most potent instrument of mechanical force known to man. ”

“ There can be no question that we have for our example, in the man Watt, a nature cast in the finest mold, seemingly composed of every creature's best. Transcendent as were his abilities as inventor and discoverer, we are persuaded that our readers will feel that his qualities as a man in all the relations of life were not less so, nor less worthy of record. ”

“ Skilled workmen do not have to fashion the parts. They only stand looking on at machinery—itself made by automatic tools—performing work of unerring accuracy. Had Watt had at his call only a small part of the inventory resources of our day, his model steam engine might have been named the Minerva, for Minerva-like, it would have sprung forth complete, the creature of automatic machinery, the workmen meanwhile smilingly looking on at these slaves of the mechanic which had been brought forth and harnessed to do his bidding by the exercise of godlike reason. ”

“ Of Watt, the genius, possessed of abilities far beyond those of other men, a scientist and philosopher, a mechanician and a craftsman, one who gravitated without effort to the top of every society, and who, even when a young workman, made his workshop the meeting-place of the leaders of Glasgow University for the interchange of views upon the highest and most abstruse subjects—with all this we have already dealt, but it is only part, and not the nobler part. ”

“ Lest we are led into a sad mistake here, let us stop a moment to consider how Watt so easily accomplished wonders, as if by inspiration. In all history it may be doubted whether success can be traced more clearly to long and careful preparation than in Watt's case. When we investigate, for instance, this seeming sleight-of-hand triumph with the organs, we find that upon agreeing to make the first, Watt immediately devoted himself to a study of the laws of harmony, making science supplement his lack of the musical ear. ”

“ Watt in some sort resembled the greatest and most celebrated of his own inventions; of which we are at a loss whether most to wonder at the power of grappling with the mightiest objects, or of handling the most minute; so that while nothing seems too large for its grasp, nothing seems too small for the delicacy of its touch; which can cleave rocks and pour forth rivers from the bowels of the earth, and with perfect exactness, though not with greater ease, fashion the head of a pin, or strike the impress of some curious die. ”

“ Proceeding further and putting mechanical power into electricity, only from 2 to 5 per cent. is turned into light; or, in other words, from coal to light we get on an average only about one-half of 1 per cent. of the original energy, a wastage of ninety-nine and one-half of every hundred pounds of coal used. The very best possible with largest and best machinery is a little more than one pound from every hundred consumed.
When Watt gave to the steam-engine five times its efficiency by utilising the latent heat, he only touched the fringe of the mysterious realm which envelops man. ”

“ Dick, Professor of natural philosophy, knowing of Watt's skill from his first start in Glasgow, had already employed him to repair some mathematical instruments bequeathed to the university by a Scotch gentleman in the West Indies, and the work had been well done, at a cost of five pounds—the first contract money ever earned by Watt in Glasgow. Good work always tells. Ability cannot be kept down forever ”

“ James Watt, on the contrary, brought every principle to some practical use; and, as it were, made science descend from heaven to earth. The great inventions of the Syracusan died with him—those of our philosopher live, and their utility and importance are daily more felt; they are among the grand results which place civilised above savage man—which secure the triumph of intellect, and exalt genius and moral force over mere brutal strength, courage and numbers.
Pg. 226
Sir James Mackintosh says:
It may be presumptuous in me to add anything in my own words to such just and exalted praise. ”

“ Even the double and triple and quadruple expansion engines, by which the highest modern economy for power and steam engines has been obtained, are splendid mechanical developments of the principle of expansion, discovered and published by Watt, and used, though to a comparatively limited extent, in his own engines. ”

“ Indeed, few important inventions have come from those who have not been thus employed. It is with inventors as with poets; few have been born to the purple or with silver spoons in their mouths, and we shall plainly see later on that had it not been for Watt's inherited and acquired manual dexterity, it is probable that the steam engine could never have been perfected, so often did failure of experiments arise solely because it was in that day impossible to find men capable of executing the plans of the inventor. ”