Engines

There is but one thing that breathes like a man yet has the fierceness of stampede. Though its exhalation is quite more vicious than that of a man, the product of both is the same. Engines have the capacity, like no other item, to convert energy to raw, but useful power. Certainly atom bombs can make a six-cylinder engine seem petty and minuscule on the index of raw power alone, but the energy produced from an atom bomb does not equate to much useful work – unless your work is ransacking villages. Engines conversion rate of energy to work, though still shamefully low due to the loss through mechanisms such as friction and ultimately heat, is relatively high compared to other automatons. The steam engine allowed people, for the first time, to travel at neck-breaking speeds of 25 km/hr (or in the idiom which is American exceptionality, 15 mph). This did not merely promulgate free trade, but more inconspicuously, free thought. People were suddenly not bounded by their own local geography and constrained to a lifetime spent within the confines of a very prescribed locality. I do not mean to suggest that people did not travel far and abroad before steam engines. In fact, some of the greatest explorers and explorations came long before the engine became a ubiquitous phenomenon, like Vespucci, Ericson, Columbus, Polo and Magellan. These, however, were the exception and not the rule. Engines made extended travel not simply the rule but the standard. It is likely that men like the Greek engineer, Hero, invented engines, especially on a small scale, long before the Industrial Revolution. Though without the availability of other inventions, like Gutenberg’s printing press, the exchange of information is dampened. That is just the thing with information and inventions. There is a certain inflection point in the spread of information and availability of resources that allows the linear progression of technology to suddenly become logarithmic. Engines may have just been the necessary catalyst to fuel such progression. To the modern person, something like a coal steam engine seems archaic and even laughable, but to the keen eye and mind, the steam engine is not an artifact but a marvel of epic proportions. It should also remind us to not take the availability of transportation, technology, and free travel for granted. Freedom is fragile, and usually comes at a high price.