Newton and gravity, Roentgen and X-rays, Mestral and Velcro, Plunkett, and Teflon; some of history’s defining scientific discoveries have been accidental, and fifteen-year-old James Watt’s incident with a kettle is no less momentous.
Accidents May Cause Discoveries
Newton and gravity, Roentgen and X-rays, Mestral and Velcro, Plunkett, and Teflon; some of history’s defining scientific discoveries have been accidental, and fifteen-year-old James Watt’s incident with a kettle is no less momentous.
Young James is said to have sat at his aunt’s tea table for over an hour, watching the lid on a kettle rise and realizing the power of steam. Some dismiss the story as a myth, but James Watt went on to carry out many laboratory experiments using a kettle as a boiler to generate steam. His improvements to the steam engine sparked the Industrial Revolution, altered economies and laid the tracks for seismic social change.
The Engine That Drove a Revolution
Newton and gravity, Roentgen and X-rays, Mestral and Velcro, Plunkett, and Teflon; some of history’s defining scientific discoveries have been accidental, and fifteen-year-old James Watt’s incident with a kettle is no less momentous.
Young James is said to have sat at his aunt’s tea table for over an hour, watching the lid on a kettle rise and realizing the power of steam. Some dismiss the story as a myth, but James Watt went on to carry out many laboratory experiments using a kettle as a boiler to generate steam. His improvements to the steam engine sparked the Industrial Revolution, altered economies and laid the tracks for seismic social change.
The engine that drove a revolution
The young James Watt was described by his cousin, Marion Campbell, as a “sickly, delicate” but brilliant boy who would sit for hours poring over mathematical calculations and dismantling and reassembling his toys. James Watt’s talent for observation and practical application saw him become the engineering virtuoso behind the Industrial Revolution. His contributions to science and industry eventually led to the adoption of the unit of power named in his honor. Watt did not actually invent the steam engine, but it was his pioneering work on steam power that culminated in his invention of a separate condenser that significantly improved the efficiency of the Newcomen engine. This was arguably the most important invention of the 18th century, and his steam engine became known as “the workhorse of the Industrial Revolution.”
James Watt propelled us into the modern world, but it was his difficult early years and subsequent setbacks that defined him. The son of a shipwright and grandson of a noted mathematician, Watt was prone to bouts of ill health and was largely home-schooled by his well-educated mother, Agnes. At first, his father’s business prospered and grew, and the young James would make models and repair nautical instruments in the workshop. But during Watt’s teenage years, a series of commercial disasters struck and the business began to flounder. His father’s health began to fail, and two years after his mother’s death, 19-year-old James Watt was forced to move to London to study instrument-making. He mastered the craft in a single year.
An optimistic Watt returned to Glasgow in 1756, certain that as the only mathematical instrument-maker in Scotland he would have no problem finding work. His hopes were dashed by the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen, however, who blocked his employment because Watt had failed to put in the requisite seven years as an apprentice. So much for being a fast learner! It was a catch-22 for Watt: there was nobody for him to apprentice with, because there was no-one with his speciality. No-one said it was easy being a pioneer.
Did You Know...?
- … that da Vinci designed the first humanoid robot. His “Robotic Knight” was effectively a suit operated through an elaborate system of gears, wheels, pulleys, and cables.
- … that da Vinci sketched out the first ideas for contact lenses. He believed that a person’s vision could be improved by wearing water-filled lenses over the eye.
- … that da Vinci was the first to describe coronary artery disease and the first to describe the heart as a muscle.
- … that the first recorded use of sonar was by Leonardo da Vinci in 1490. He inserted a tube into water to detect vessels by ear.
- … that although da Vinci hated war, he came up with inventions for a great many machines of war, including the armored tank, a water-powered machine for manufacturing cannon barrels, a giant crossbow, a triple barrel canon, and a series of revolving and mobile bridges to allow armies to advance over bodies of water.
- … that da Vinci’s well documented fascination with water also led him to design scuba gear. While working in Venice, da Vinci designed his scuba gear for surprise attacks on enemy ships from underwater. A bag-like mask covered the diver’s head, with air supplied from a diving bell on the surface via two cane tubes.
Watt’s Greatest Invention: The Separate Condenser
Newcomen engines were already in widespread use even before Watt’s birth, with the first working steam engine patented in 1698. When Watt was given a Newcomen engine to repair in about 1763, he was struck by its inefficiency. He came up with a design for a separate condensing chamber that addressed the Newcomen engine’s biggest shortcoming, its incredible waste of steam. The separate condenser was his first and arguably greatest invention, radically improving the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines.
Revolutionary Refinements
Nature’s secret code
Many of Leonardo’s works are said to illustrate the “golden ratio”—a mathematical principle repeated in natural models, from flower petals, seed heads, and tree branches to shells, spiral galaxies, and DNA molecules. The golden ratio was used by many Renaissance artists to achieve balance and beauty, and da Vinci applied it to the proportions in his “Last Supper” and used it in perhaps his best-known work of art, the “Mona Lisa.”
The golden ratio ties in closely with mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci’s “Fibonacci sequence,” which dates back to around 1200—and which has become one of the most famous mathematical formulas, where each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. The sequence has been called “nature’s secret code” and also governs the dimensions of many icons of architecture such as the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Parthenon in Athens.
Atalay also suggested that NASA scientists and engineers would benefit from taking a leaf out of Leonardo’s book. “I think to optimize creativity, you have to bring together expertise in different fields,” he said. “Obviously, Leonardo is the ultimate scientist-artist-inventor-mathematician … following Leonardo’s lead will not make any of us other Leonardos. But there are things to learn from his example. You should always take notes. You should sketch. Even if you renounce your artistic ability, try to sketch, and you will develop it. You will remember things much better.”
The question is, how do we make the act of asking nature’s advice a normal part of everyday inventing?”
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
In the hope of enabling human flight, Leonardo da Vinci closely observed the anatomy and flight of birds and applied biophilic design principles to come up with various sketches of flying machines—in da Vinci’s case a flapping ornithopter, where the pilot would spin cranks with his hands and feet so that the wings of the machine would flap. Da Vinci was such a visionary that his research into flight would never produce any working flying machines during his own lifetime, but his ideas would later inspire the Wright Brothers, who, incidentally, also closely observed the flight of pigeons. The Wright Brothers designed, built, and flew their first aircraft in 1903.
Da Vinci based his designs for the aerial screw, which was considered the first model of a helicopter, and a parachute—a necessity if humans were to fly—on observations of seed pods and flowers falling from trees. His theory for the aerial screw was based on the use of manpower to rotate the screw fast enough to create a spiral of air beneath the blades, lifting the structure off the ground, while the canopy in his design for the parachute was triangular rather than rounded. The first person to actually test da Vinci’s parachute was Adrian Nichols in 2000, and his prototype proved a success and testimony to da Vinci’s genius.
The Bank of England £50 Bill an Innovation in Itself
The Fibonacci sequence, credited to Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, is a formula where each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers that precede it: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc. The mathematical equation is
Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2
The sequence reflects various patterns found in nature, and as such is also known as “nature’s universal rule.” These are a few of the most remarkable examples:
Shells:
Many shells, including snail shells and nautilus shells, follow the progressive proportional increase of the Fibonacci sequence.
Trees:
The way tree branches grow out of the tree and each other is an example of the Fibonacci sequence.
Seed heads:
The seeds of a flower—sunflowers are a good example—are often produced at the center and migrate outward.
Pinecones:
The seed pods spiral upward in opposite directions. The number of steps the spirals take tend to match Fibonacci numbers.
Flower petals and leaves:
Petals unfold more and more as the Fibonacci sequence increases, and the leaves of a plant are arranged so that the maximum number can spiral around the stem before a new leaf grows directly above it, ensuring that each leaf receives the optimum amount of sunlight and catches as much rain as possible.
DNA molecules:
A DNA molecule measures 34 angstroms by 21 angstroms at each full cycle of the double helix spiral, and in the Fibonacci series 34 follows 21.
The current UK £50 banknote featuring Matthew Boulton and James Watt.
Full Steam Ahead!
The power of water
The records of the Florentine government name Leonardo da Vinci a “Master of Water.” He was fascinated by water, which he famously described as “vetturale di natura”—the vehicle of nature. He believed that water was to the world what blood is to the human body, and indeed his descriptions of cities were anatomical, with water flowing through arteries. While obsessed with water, he also lived in fear of its destructive power, having witnessed disasters such as the Arno river breaking its banks on two occasions. To the end of his days he was haunted by visions of great deluges destroying the earth.
Da Vinci observed the motion of water, the ebb and flow of tides, and was the first to advance the theory of erosion. He said: “Water gnaws at mountains and fills valleys. If it could, it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere.” Perhaps as a consequence, da Vinci worked on the development of devices that could be used to control and divert water, also designing locks and canal systems. The relationship between water and energy also inspired Leonardo to develop ideas on the use of water to drive sawmills, forges, flour mills, factories, and silk-spinning works.
Master of every discipline
Clearly Leonardo da Vinci was a jack of all trades, yet one who mastered every discipline to which he turned his hand. It’s an impressive list: artist, anatomist, architect, paleontologist, botanist, scientist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, inventor, musician, poet, and more. He understood the power of nature to inspire, and was attuned to issues of sustainability. Indeed da Vinci was so far ahead of his time that he feared for the earth’s forests as humanity continued to search for fuel, devising a system that would harness the solar power of the sun using concave mirrors to heat water for Renaissance Florence. Da Vinci also accurately described the hydrological cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, and even today we can use this cycle to help us understand the science behind climate change.
According to Vienna-born physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra, although Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific discoveries have all been “re-discovered,” we cannot fail to marvel at his genius and how he made all of these discoveries so early. We can take inspiration from da Vinci in many ways, says Capra: “His systemic way of thinking, of interconnecting problems, and seeing how things are connected. His profound respect of nature and his desire to imitate nature and learn from Her, in biomimicry, in eco-design.
Leonardo da Vinci’s science always went together with ethics. Animals to him were, ontologically, completely equivalent to humans, at the same level. He was a vegetarian and had a very deep respect of life.” A thinker with boundless imagination and creativity, Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas continue to influence art and science to this day; so inventive was he that a great many of his groundbreaking inventions were not—and, technologically, could not have been—realized until hundreds of years after the death of one of history’s greatest pioneers.
