James Watt: biography and contributions of this Scottish engineer and inventor

The greatest invention that the 18th century could offer the world was the one that changed everything, a device that marked the before and after industrial production and helped to actually start the Industrial Revolution: the machine steam.

It had originally been developed by a certain Thomas Newcomen in 1712, but it was not until James Watt perfected it that the machine could be used to its maximum splendor, power and efficiency.

Watt was a mechanical engineer, inventor and chemist who, if he had not existed, the world we live in would undoubtedly be very different. Let's find out what happened to his life in this james watt biography.

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Brief biography of James Watt

James Watt was a Scottish mechanical engineer, inventor, and chemist famous for improving Newcomen's engine, giving rise to what we now know as the steam engine. Without the figure of Watt, the first Industrial Revolution would have hardly taken placeboth in the UK and around the world.

Childhood

james watt born at Greenock, near Glasgow, Scotland, on January 19, 1736. His father, also named James Watt, was a naval inventor and contractor and his mother was Agnes Muirhead, who came from a distinguished and well-educated family. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Watt, professor of mathematics and magistrate of the Barony of Cartsburn.

James Watt's childhood was that of a boy in poor health, preventing him from attending school regularly and being educated primarily by his mother at his home. When he recovered somewhat, he was able to attend Greenock Grammar School. At school he showed great manual dexterity and an aptitude for mathematics., unlike with Latin and Greek, which did not interest him at all.

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Youth as a learner

At the age of eighteen, his mother passed away and his father began to have health problems. It was then that James Watt traveled to London to become an apprentice maker of measuring instruments during 1755-1756. On his return to Scotland, he settled in Glasgow with the intention of setting up his own measuring instrument manufacturing business. There he made and repaired with his own hands reflective brass dials, parallel rulers, balances, parts for telescopes and barometers.

Despite his interest and qualifications, as he had not worked as an apprentice for the minimum seven years required by the Glasgow Blacksmiths Guild, his application to the guild was blocked. The most harmed by this decision was the union itself, since there were no other mathematical instrument makers in all of Scotland.

Fortunately for Watt, this would change with the arrival of astronomical instruments from exotic Jamaica. Loaned by Alexander Macfarlane to the University of Glasgow, these instruments required the attention of experts such as James Watt. The young engineer restored them for their start-up and was paid for it, making a place for himself in the world.

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Watt as businessman

Later, three professors from the University of Glasgow offered James Watt the opportunity to create a small workshop within the institution. He started it in 1757 together with two of those professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black (introducer of the concept of latent heat) and the famous economist and philosopher Adam Smith, who soon became friends with Watt.

in 1759 created a business partnership with architect and businessman John Craig. Both intended to manufacture and sell a product line that included both musical instruments and toys. The company functioned fairly well for six years, employing as many as sixteen workers. However, in 1765 Craig passed away and one of the employees, Alex Gardner, took over the business.

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Personal life and last years

James Watt married his cousin Margaret (Peggy) Miller in 1764, with whom he had five children., two of whom lived to adulthood: James Jr. (1769–1848) and Margaret (1767–1796). Eight years later, in 1772, to Watt's misfortune, his beloved wife died giving birth to her fifth child.

In 1777 Watt remarried, this time to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye manufacturer. With her he had two children: Gregory (1777–1804), who became a geologist and mineralogist, and Janet (1779–1794). Both James and Ann outlived her children, she dying in 1832.

James Watt lived in Regent Place, Birmingham, England between 1777 and 1790. There was a leading member of the local Lunar Society, an English gentlemen's club whose main interest revolved around science.

James Watt died on August 25, 1819 in Heathfield, in his luxurious and comfortable mansion located in Handsworth, England, due to tuberculosis. He was 83 years old

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Achievements as an engineer

What is undoubtedly the greatest achievement of James Watt is to invent the steam engine, or rather, perfect it from Thomas Newcomen's first machine. What Watt did was turn it into a viable and inexpensive power-producing contraption. Watt found that Newcomen's engine was spending about three-quarters of the steam's energy heating the piston and cylinder.

To improve performance, Watt developed a separate condensing chamber which significantly increased its power. This was a real scientific and economic advance, something that Watt knew how to take advantage of economically. In 1795 he founded with Matthew Boulton the Soho Foundry in Birmingham, a foundry and factory specializing in the manufacture of steam engines. Thanks to this, he became gold.

One of the most striking aspects of Watt is his outright opposition to the use of high-pressure steam. Some consider this fact as something that slowed the development of the steam engine by other engineers, until they could work freely when the patents expired in 1800. The feat that he carried out together with his partner Boulton against rival engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower, who tried to develop machines far from Wattian patents, is well known.

Another of James Watt's achievements is the invention of a unit, the horsepower., used to compare the power of different steam engines. It is still used today, especially for vehicles.

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What was his personality like?

James Watt would not have become the scientist if he had not possessed the ability to combine the theoretical knowledge of science with the ability to apply it in practice. He was not only a great practical mechanic, but also a very good chemist and natural philosopher, whose inventions demonstrated his deep knowledge of various natural sciences. His genius, capable of uniting the knowledge that he extracted from various sciences, served him to apply them in the form of great inventions. Also, he was an excellent cartoonist.

His star invention, the steam engine, allowed him to rub shoulders with the most outstanding men of the English Industrial Revolution. His peers at the Birmingham Lunar Society described him as a sought-after conversationalist and companion, always interested in furthering his knowledge. His personal friends described him as a nice man.

Despite being a great genius, he did not stop sinning as a human being and had a weak point: business. For James Watt, all that was haggling and negotiating conditions with those who wanted to use his steam engine was a bad drink. He didn't like to talk about finances. Even so, he always cared a lot about his financial affairs until he retired.

Despite his great intellectual and scientific productivity, James Watt suffered from frequent attacks of depression and nervous headaches.

Acknowledgments

James Watt received several awards throughout his life. In 1784 he was made a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1787 he was admitted as a member of the Batavian Society of Experimental Philosophy. (Bataafsch Genootschap voor Proefondervindelijke Wijsbegeerte) from Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In 1789 he was fortunate to join an elite group, the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, the first such association. In 1806 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Glasgow. In 1814 he was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences as a foreign associate.

The unit of electrical power, the Watt or watt, is named in his honor.. This measure was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures of 1960 as the unit of power incorporated into the International System of Units.