Some asked me not long ago what tehnologies changed the world to make is as we know it now. Even my favourite tehnology is the transistor, the list of them is so long it can take days or weeks to enumerate them. I’ll try mention a few of them, the one that I consider the most important.
Steam engines, 1698
In 1698 the British inventor Thomas Savery patented a steam-powered pump which he described as an “engine to raise water by fire”. Thomas Savery’s very basic engine relied on a theory that had been around for several centuries but never successfully applied: the steam would create a vacuum and pull water upwards through a pipe. The technology was improved later with pistons and cylinders by Thomas Newcomen, a blacksmith, and again by Watt in the mid-18th century.
