“Savery, Newcomen, Smeaton, the famous Watt, Woolf, Trevithick, and some other English engineers, are the veritable creators of the steam-engine.”

— Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Savery, Newcomen, Smeaton, the famous Watt, Woolf, Trevithick, and some other English engineers, are the veritable crea…" by Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot?

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot 19

French physicist, the "father of thermodynamics" (1796–1832) 1796–1832

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 6, The Viable Governor, p. 142.

“In Newcomen's engine, the piston is kept tight by water”

James Watt (1736–1819) British engineer

"Notes on Professor Robison's Dissertation on Steam-engines" (1769)
Context: In Newcomen's engine, the piston is kept tight by water, which could not be applicable in this new method; as, if any of it entered into a partially-exhausted and hot cylinder, it would boil, and prevent the production of a vacuum, and would also cool the cylinder by its evaporation during the descent of the piston. I proposed to remedy this defect by employing wax, tallow, or other grease, to lubricate and keep the piston tight. It next occurred to me, that the mouth of the cylinder being open, the air which entered to act on the piston would cool the cylinder, and condense some steam on again filling it. I therefore proposed to put an air-tight cover upon the cylinder, with a hole and stuffing-box for the piston-rod to slide through, and to admit steam above the piston to act upon it, instead of the atmosphere.... There still remained another source of the destruction of steam, the cooling of the cylinder by the external air, which would produce an internal condensation whenever steam entered it, and which would be repeated every stroke; this I proposed to remedy by an external cylinder, containing steam, surrounded by another of wood, or of some other substance which would conduct heat slowly.

“Where did the second law of thermodynamics come from? …The steam engine. …The cosmos is not a steam engine.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Heresy Number Three
The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates (2012)

“The switch from 'steam engines' to 'heat engines' signals the transition from engineering practice to theoretical science.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 18, Information is Physical, The cost of forgetting, p. 154

“Modern liberalism: a heartless steam engine.”

Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) Bishop in the Church of England

Quoted in Arthur Burns, "Wilberforce, Samuel (1805–1873)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

“The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.”

Lewis Mumford book Technics and Civilization

Source: Technics and Civilization (1934), Ch. 1, sct. 2

“Private Capitalism makes a steam engine; State Capitalism makes pyramids.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

As quoted in “Frank Chodorov: Champion of Liberty,” Aaron Steelman, FEE, (Foundation for Economic Education), (December 1, 1996) https://fee.org/articles/frank-chodorov-champion-of-liberty/