FROM A BANAL CURIOSITY TO THE POWER OF A REVOLUTION: A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY, EVOLUTION AND FIRST IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE WATT & BOULTON STEAM ENGINE While the company As Europe entered the 18th century, the importance and potential value of the applied sciences became clearer than they had ever been before. Numerous technical advances have been made, chief among them the Newcomen Atmospheric Engine. This engine, one of the first examples of a steam engine put into practice, was widely used in mines as a means of pumping out unwanted water. However, the Newcomen engine was riddled with flaws and defects that prevented its widespread use. The engine could neither create nor maintain high levels of pressure, it pumped at an erratic rate, and its overall efficiency was nothing short of atrocious. Attempts to remedy these fundamental problems with the Newcomen Engine failed, and for the most part, the engine design remained unchanged. Then, in the early 1760s, Scottish inventor James Watt decided to try his hand at improving and perfecting it. For over a decade, Watt was consumed by the desire to improve the engine to the point where he was no longer capable of doing so. 1. Heron's Aeolipile1 feasible for commercial sale and mass application. He did this through a series of critical additions to the original design that not only revolutionized the steam engine of the time but also the steam-powered society of the 1800s. The technological advances that Watt introduced into Newcomen's inefficient atmospheric engine opened up a world of new possibility of application of the steam engine, which extends far beyond the confines of the English coal mines. The steam engine was, for much of its history, considered little more than a curiosity, a novelty in the science of...... middle of paper . .....and, installing the engine in his first steamboat, the Clermont, built in 1807. Like Stevens, Fulton would pioneer the use of steam as a means of transportation, establishing and monopolizing the fledgling shipping industry Commercial steamboats of the Hudson River. As a single scientist, James Watt pushed the limits of steam power further than any previous engineer. He developed a comparably efficient motor, capable of running at a regulated, constant speed while exerting enormous amounts of force. His innovative dedication and successful implementation of these engineering breakthroughs transformed the relatively weak and ill-suited fire engine of the Thomas Savery era into an industrial powerhouse, capable of revolutionizing nearly every industry to which it was applied. The system and methods established by James Watt sowed the seeds of the coming revolution.