Talk:Thomas Newcomen/Material from Wikipedia user Dr. Gabriel Gojon/War Pressures

War Pressures Leibniz had barely dissuaded Papin, pressured by the war situation, from accepting a Royal Society invitation to take up his old post as curator of experiments -an offer made to him, interestingly enough, just after Parliament had granted Savery his exclusive patent in 1699. If Papin had gone to England at that point, all of his experiments in steam power would have come under Savery's legal control. The situation was so unsettled in Germany that Papin was afraid to visit Leibniz in Hanover, for fear that his family would be caught alone in a French attack. He concluded that no continued scientific progress would be possible without an end to the war. He wrote to Leibniz in 1702, describing his experiments with a ballistic air pump capable of throwing "a weight of 2 pounds to a distance of 40 feet" and designed eventually "to facilitate the capture of the strongest positions." Papin argued that this invention not only would help bring peace, but also would be the best enticement for princes and generals to support further research into steam technology.

After a year of strenuous efforts to interest the leaders of the anti- French alliance in his invention, Papin reported to Leibniz (Feb. 25,1704), "It has been possible since then to receive a reply neither from England nor from Holland; therefore all that I can conclude is that there is only some secret reason why no one wants to accept my proposal."

Leibniz continued to maintain friendly pressure on Papin throughout 1704, insisting that he resume research into applying violent force (particularly that of gunpowder) to the propulsion of ships and to carriages, if not to airplanes. Leibniz argued that such a breakthrough would have the greatest world strategical impact:

"Yet I would well counsel [you], Monsieur, to undertake more considerable things which would force everyone to give their approbation and would truly change the state of things. The two items of binding together the pneumatic machine and gunpowder and applying the force of fire to vehicles would truly be of this nature." Papin finally agreed, and in a letter March 13, 1704 he revealed that he had already built a model paddlewheel boat "which can carry about 4,000 pounds", and that he had developed a complete theory of rowing "which can also be applied to land vehicles." By January 1705, Papin had received Leibniz's sketch of Savery's engine. Of course, this had the expected effect on Papin's thinking, as well as on the attitude of the Landgrave of Hesse, who took a renewed interest in Papin's work. In March, a newly self-confident Papin wrote to Leibniz:

I can assure you that, the more I go forward, the more I find reason to think highly of this invention which, in theory, may augment the powers of man to infinity; but in practice I believe I can say without exaggeration, that one man by this means will be able to do as much as 100 others can do without it. All that I've done up until now has only been to discover the characteristics of this machine and the different symptoms to which it may be subject [a reference to the analysis of the thermodynamic efficiency of Savery's device discussed above-PV]. But Monseigneur from now on wants to apply it to some real use, and his Highness gave me the honor of commanding me to apply this force to turn a mill to grind wheat .... And if after the mill we can proceed to apply this invention to ships [voitures par eau], I would believe this discovery incomparably more useful than finding longitudes on the ocean, which has been sought for so long." By the end of 1706, Papin's experiments had convinced him of the explosive strategic potential of steam technology: "Yet it's a great shame that the things from which the Public could derive such considerable usefulness aren't impelled by heat. Because the advantages which this invention could furnish for sea-going vessels alone, without counting those of land vehicles, would be incomparably greater than all expected from the transmutation of metals."