What seemed to finalize the impact of the Watt engine on the Industrial Revolution was his creation of the double-acting engine. Doubling the efficiency, it condensed steam both above and below ...

Naomi Alderman tells the story of James Watt and the steam engine that nearly never got made. A breath of steam hits cold metal. It cools suddenly and becomes a drop of water. There an idea. But ...

The steam engine may seem like a relic of the past. But without this game-changing invention, the modern world would be a much different place.

Watt's genius was not limited to his steam engine: he invented a raft of other things, including a centrifugal governor to limit the speed of his engines, sun-and-planet gears as an alternative to ...