Technology and Engineering Atlas

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Thomas Newcomen

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Thomas Newcomen was an English ironmonger who built the first commercially successful steam engine in 1712, an atmospheric engine used to pump floodwater out of coal and tin mines. His design, though inefficient by later standards, remained in widespread use for pumping for most of the eighteenth century until James Watt's separate condenser dramatically improved on it.

Facts
Birth Year
1664 1
Death Year
1729 1
Nationality
English 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

In Field

Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors

Invented

Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Sources
1. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954
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