Question

When considering the Industrial Age, discuss one technological innovation that was in your eyes the most important agent of influencing how cultures changed, thrived, and even dominated other cultures?

Answer 1

Unlike similar historical terms, the term Industrial Revolution is more convenient than true. It is convenient because history needs division into periods for interpretation and instruction purposes and because at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries there were ample developments to justify choosing this as one of the periods. Nevertheless, the definition is imprecise because there is no clearly defined beginning or end of the Industrial Revolution.

Power technology- The advance of power technology has been an excellent aspect of the Industrial Revolution. The main power sources available to industry and any other possible user at the beginning of this time were animated energy and the power of wind and water, with the only exception of any importance being the atmospheric steam engines used for pumping purposes, primarily in coal mines. It should be noted that this use of steam power was remarkable and remained so until well into the 19th century for most industrial purposes.

Steam has not just substituted other power sources: it has transformed them. The same kind of scientific inquiry that contributed to the steam engine's invention was also extended to conventional inanimate energy sources, resulting in improved design and performance for both waterwheels and windmills. Numerous engineers contributed to the development of waterwheel construction, and by the mid-19th century new designs made it possible to increase the speed of the waterwheel's revolution, thereby paving the way for the invention of the water turbine, which is still an extremely efficient tool for energy conversion.

Windmills- In the meantime, British windmill design was significantly improved by sail refining and the fantail's self-correcting system, which held the sails pointed in the wind. Spring sails replaced the windmill's conventional canvas rig with the equivalent of a modern venetian blind, whose shutters could be opened or closed, enabling the wind to move through or providing a surface to exert its energy. With the "patent" sail in 1807, the sail architecture was further developed.

In mills fitted with these sails, a lever inside the mill connected by rod connections through the windshaft to the bar controlling the shutter movement on each sweep operated the shutters on all the sails simultaneously. To order to determine the highest wind pressure beyond which the shutters would open and spill the water, the mechanism could be made more fully automatic by hanging weights on the lever in the turbine. Conversely, to hold the shutters in the open position, counterweights could be added.

British windmills adapted to the rising demands on power technology with these and other modifications. In the 19th century, however, the use of wind power declined sharply with the spread of steam and the growing use of electricity. Windmills that had adequately provided power for small-scale industrial processes could not cope with large-scale steam-powered mill production.