The Economist (US), December 25th, 1999
1765
ALL the best inventions have a legendary "light bulb" moment. James Watt's is supposed to have been when he saw the lid of his kettle rattling. It was then, so the story goes, that he realised that steam pressure could be harnessed to do something useful.
Maybe it happened that way. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it does not matter. For Watt did not actually invent the steam engine. That honour belongs to Thomas Newcomen, whose steam-powered mine pump had been around for more than half a century when Watt built his first engine in 1765. Yet the fact that the scientific unit of power is called...
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