Greatest Engine Invention in Human History?
Comments
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Jet
Specifically, today's high-bypass turbofans and the original 1950s turbofans. The tech improvements for turbofans (Pratt and Whitney JT3D) basically led to the jet age, and today's high-bypass engines are so amazingly efficient and reliable. Prior to 1900 the concept of traveling around the world was confined to ships and only the incredibly wealthy, all with significant risk, taking weeks or months to navigate.
Today you (or cargo) can get from virtually any inhabited place on the globe to any other within 36 hours with an incredibly high level of safety and reliability. Not just the wealthy either.
Steam turbine is acknowledged for its importance as well.
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Steam (Piston or Turbine)
I need to pick this apart a bit…
Steam did far more to shrink the world than any of the other options presented here. In 1800 it took about 30 days to sail from England to New York and it was still a treacherous undertaking. By 1907 the RMS Lusitania was doing the same trip in 4 days time and it was relatively safe barring the occasional iceberg or Das Untersee Boot. With railroads the gains were even more impressive as it relates to land travel.
The modern turbofan jet is a remarkable invention, but it's still a marginal gain on the internal combustion engine. Remember a DC-7 could cruise at 350 MPH and fly from NY to London in a decent amount of time. Modern jets are safer and have better range, but don't represent as great of leap forward as steam.
And keep in mind that most movement of goods throughout the world is till occurring on water or rail. Flying shit somewhere is crazy expensive. Ask @Logistics !!
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Jet
The question was greatest :)
The current speed and reliability of transport by high bypass turbofans is super impressive. The impact of steam turbines was probably higher as the starting point was lower. Is greatest measured by margin improvements or top end ability?
Engine performance is not completely correlated to airframe safety, but the 338 DC-7s produced killed 714 people. The nearly 2000 787s and A350s in service haven't killed a passenger.
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Steam (Piston or Turbine)
"Greatest" is subjective obviously. I'm looking at through the lens of what changed life for sapiens the most. Have you read Sapiens yet @whlinder btw? Great read.
Current levels of commercial air travel are certainly one of man kind's greatest (recent) achievements and engines play a part in that. I mean there's a reason why we can fly from San Francisco to Sydney on a wide body and only need 2 engines. But comparing a DC-7 to a 787 on safety is like comparing my wife's Audi Allroad Wagon with a 2.0 turbo to @RaceBannon 's 1956 Chevy. They both are internal combustion technology.
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Google.
The engine used by the most people in history.
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Steam (Piston or Turbine)
Christ. I thought you were like an oil man or something.
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F.O. Row Peter Puffer, You left off
I like the way you use Christ! as a term of quiet rye exasperation… amusing
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Steam (Piston or Turbine)
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F.O. Row Peter Puffer, You left off
Can't see the image but clicked on the link, Hilarious…
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Steam (Piston or Turbine)
We went from no engines to steam engines, and nothing better or even different came around for a long time. Easy pick.
