
A treatise on the art of flying by mechanical means (1814) - dredmorbius
https://archive.org/stream/treatiseonartoff00walk#page/n6/mode/1up
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brudgers
The early 19th century is an interesting period technologically.

For context, 1814 was thirty two years after the first manned balloon flight.
That's as long as from today to the release of the Macintosh. The steam engine
had been around for about a century and commercial steamships were already in
operation.

~~~
dredmorbius
It is. I've been covering some histories of the period.

There's James Burke's _Connections_ and _The Day the Universe Changed_ , which
cover technology and philosophy generally, but focus a great deal on the
Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.

More recently, there is Vaclav Smil's _Energy in World History_ (1994), and
Manfred Weissenbacher's _Sources of Power_ (2009). Both look at history
through the lens of energy sources. Weissenbacher divides history into five
eras: 1) Hunter-gatherers, 2) Agriculture, 3) Coal, 4) Oil, and 5) Post-oil.
The first three comprise one volume, the 4th is most of the 2nd. History in
many regards begins with oil.

It's useful to realise just how primitive steam power was at the time.
Savery's pistonless suction pump deliverd 750 watts. Newcomen's 1712 engine,
3.75 kW. The power stroke wasn't from the pressurised steam, but the vacuum of
condensation. Watt's engine operated similarly but more efficiently with an
external condenser, delivered 20 kW, about 5x the output of typical
waterwheels and 3x the output of a median windmill of the time. Both water and
wind competed with steam for much the first half of the 19th century.

Watt's patent, granted in 1769, was extended for 25 years by the Steam Engine
Act of 1775, which had the effect of _stalling_ further development of steam
technology by a quarter century. Weissenbacher dates the start of the
Industrial Revolution to 1800 on that basis -- it's when Watt's patents
expired and true innovation could begin: smaller engines, high-pressure
engines, and mobile engines, all of which Watt opposed and quashed whilst he
had the power to.

Watt had produced about 500 engines by 1800, which if 20 kW each, meant that
the total steam capacity of England was about 10 MW. That's the electricity
usage of about 8,000 present US homes.

You're a bit optimistic with steamships -- yes, there were some early boats
(Fitch, Rumsey) on the Delaware and Potomac rivers (1791, 1802), but Robert
Fulton's _Clermont_ was only established in 1807, and his Mississippi river
boats began the same year this flying car treatise was published, in 1814. So
this was pretty much in the thick of all that.

Crossings of the Atlantic under steam didn't occur until 1833, and a westward
crossing not until 1838. Things really were just starting to take off.

The latter half of the 19th century, and particularly from about 1875 onward,
is when things really exploded. Vaclav Smil considers the single decade of the
1880s as the most transformative of all history.

~~~
brudgers
I don't disagree.

I think our perception of technology's pace during the early 19th century
versus the late 19th century is partially a result of the speed at which news
moved rather than the pace at which change occurred. The telegraph and
photograph in the first half of the 19th century created better documentation
of change in the second half. The George's Washington and III could have flown
in a balloon and ridden upriver in a steam powered vessel.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm going to disagree with you on the pace of change. That's what Smil and
Weissenbacher both cover in detail.

1800 - 1849 saw:

* Watt's patent expire, allowing larger, smaller, higher-pressure, and mobile steam engines.

* Steam applied to transport on rail and ships.

* Rail still suffered from metalurgical limits. Wrought or cast-iron rails tend to split and shatter. Bessemmer steel came in the 1860s. Build-out of US railroads really only happened in the 2nd half of the 19th century, though England had a pretty extensive system.

* Telegraph and kerosene lamps. Note that with the telegraph, news _did_ move at the speed of light, for the first time.

* The first steamships. Atlantic crossings under steam were only starting to be standard by 1850.

* Early photography.

But from 1850 to 1899, you had: Bessemer steel, petroleum, the telephone,
phonograph, bicycle (cheap transport for people that didn't need oats),
automobile, elevator, electric lights, kinescope, automobile, steam turbine,
radio-telegraph, coal-tar chemistry, first plastics, electric generators,
electric motors, indoor plumbing, sewage systems (in large cities),
antisceptics, anesthetics.

It was a combination of refinement of elments of the coal age -- better
chemistry _of_ coal, and _with_ coal (coal-tar, plastics, steelmaking), better
energy systems (ever more efficient steam engines, turbines), plus
capabilities brought about through petroleum.

There's really no doubt that the 2nd half of the 19th century saw accelerating
change, a pace that continued through the first quarter or half of the 20th
century, then slowed. Computers and information are the notable exception.

Smill, Weissenbacher, Robert Gordon, and a whole bunch of others cover the
period. It's fascinating.

