Sunday 14 January 2018

Sunday Snap – The Steam Engineer

We were looking at The Iron Duke, Arthur Wellesley, for last week's Sunday Snap. I asked what ducal name he was better known as and the answer is

Duke of Wellington

Winning at Waterloo with the right answer were Susan, Lisa and Kara.

Continuing our January statue theme we're getting steamy this week. This Scottish engineer was born in Greenock in 1736. He started off making mathematical instruments at the University of Glasgow. Over time he started to learn the workings of musical instruments despite not having any musical ability. His skill at being able to make and repair so many different things led to the university asking him to repair a Newcomen steam engine. For years this has been used to pump water out of mines. Upon examining it he realised that the design was hopelessly inefficient and started to experiment with latent heat. His work goes on to change the steam engine forever.

His advances in making steam engines more efficient became part of the Industrial Revolution. It transformed the way mill machinery worked. Britain became a global centre for the production of textiles with around 900 cotton factories in 1797. Entire towns and cities became known for being centres of fabric manufacture. In 1800 around two-thirds of the cotton cloth produced in British factories was exported.

His lasting legacy as the inventor of horsepower was to have the a unit of power named after him. It was adopted as a derived unit of International System of Units (SI) and today is used as suffix to a range of different power measurements. Check your electric usage or light bulb for clues! This week's question is

What is the name of the Scottish engineer?

We were joined last week by Susan with Hogmanay and birthday celebrations. Lisa picked out her favourite places in Israel in 2017. It was all the fun of the festive funfair for Sophie. At Monkey World Kara has been spotting the macaques and enjoying the playground. In New Zealand Betty took a New Year's Eve trip to the beach.

If you want to join in with this week's Sunday Snap then add your link to the linky below. Any theme is allowed. It doesn't have to be published today as you have until 23.55 on Friday 19th January 2018 to join in. Grab my badge below for your blog post. Just make sure it is your photo and you hold the copyright for it.
Sunday Snap

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4 comments:

  1. I think it might be James Watt

    ReplyDelete
  2. It has to be James Watt. Hope you’re having a good week lovely x

    ReplyDelete
  3. James Watt. I was watching a documentary today about British scientists.

    -Soma

    ReplyDelete

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