The Origin of the Engine
What are the origins of the term Engine, as well as, how it became for such a popular word on the net today?
Most of you are probably familiar with this term; steam engine, jet engine, fire engine, diesel engine etc. But why this form has come into use again in the internet, where term like Search Engine Optimization is common?
Before starting with the usage of this term, let's take a few steps backwards in history, and try to recognize the particular point where humanity was first exposed to this new invention.
Steam Engine
It was in the fist century in Alexandria, Roman Egypt. Heron of Alexandria, which was a known geometer and engineer as a result of his famous inventions, was the first man to create the Aeolipile.
In time, this invention will carry the name Steam Engine and will be the milestone of a new period in the history of humanity. The Aeolipile is a device which contains a chamber with an air pressure with two pipes.
The pressure of the steam causes the device to spin.
At this point of history, Heron gave no hint as to its intended use and by many modern scholars, this form of engine has been attributed as a play or toy.
1600 years later, in the 17th century, the Englishman Samuel Morlad invented a form of water pump and experimented with using gunpowder (black\smokeless powder), in order to create a vacuum (a kind of internal combustion engine). In addition, Morlad had ideas for a steam engine, but never really created one.
His great inventions were developed for applications such as draining pods, and also were spread for industrial and domestic uses.
In order to figure how humanity can derive the usefulness from engine, Europeans scholars, which today we can give them the classification of engineers, have been searching for a way to design the optimal implemented.
During the same period of Morlad, the French physicist Denis Papin conceived a new idea. After he invented the steam- release valve with Gotfried Leibniz, which helps to keed it machin from exploding, Papin desinged a piston and cylinder engine.
Althought Papin never built a real machine which contains these great inventions, he wrote up how to design it.In time, it became very usable and in 1769, James Watt was the first man to develope improvements to a type of vacuum engine into a steam engine (an engine which converts the heat anergy to mechanical work).
Watt's patent finally caused the steam engine to be a usfull power in industry.
In the course of history, engines were developed to different uses, such as; the vacuum engine, which was used almost just for pumping water and was relatively safe; the high pressure engine, the basis of steam technology which had the adventage that the engine much smaller and less expensive; the double- acting pistons, where the the piston returns to the bottom, increases the speed of the reciprocation and provides more power than a single-acting engine.
The Contamporary Usage of the Term 'Engine'
The preview chapters reviews the evolution of the engine, when acctually the steam engine is the first form of an engine. Another types of engines, such as steam engine, which the main use for it is in electricity generation, rotary steam engine, jet engine, four stroke engine etc', and of course the common use of the term search engine to describe the state-of-the-art internet machines that index relevant web pages and make our life easier.
One of the most common engines today is gasoline internal combustion engine. This engine was designed by Nikolaus Otto; however Karl Benz led in the development of a new form of this emgine, which has been the most accomplished for automobiles. For trucks and buses diesel engines are often used.
Diesel engine is not burn as clean as gasoline, but it's a powerful one. In the beginning of the 21th century diesel has been increasing in popularity with automobile owners due to its cost.
But since the gasonline emission deviece was improved, this engine hasn't been challenged extremely.
The gasoline internal combustion engine was selected for the automobile due to three main reasons; first, its availablity and moderately priced gas, also, its flexibility over a broad extent of speeds, and in addition, its reasonable weight, which could be produced by the method of mass-production.
Today, engines are still being designed by engineers and become more technological advanced in order to improve their size, piston, weight, capacity, the cylinder efficiency, increasing the speed and any other improvement which can make our life more pleasant and convenient.