Papin, Denis is an unfortunate genius

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

It is often written about him that he was born too early - during the religious wars of the Reformation, he was out of place. If he had been born at least a hundred years later, his talents and energy would have been more useful for the flourishing of the industrial revolution.

But would she come without people like Papen? Denis is a man who did much more to accelerate technological progress at the end of the 17th century.

Doctor Turned Physicist

His homeland was the small town of Shiten, located near Blois, the center of the Loir-et-Cher region. His father is the royal adviser Denis Papin (Denis got his name). The date of birth of the future scientist is not exactly known, and the one that is indicated in the biographies - August 22, 1647 - the date of baptism. Religiously, the Papin family belonged to the Huguenots, the French branch of Protestantism.

Becoming famous as a famous French physicist, Denis Papin received a non-core education. In the mother's family, Madeleine Pino, all men traditionally became doctors, and for her eldest son, she assumed a medical education. After graduating from the Jesuit school in 1661, he began studying medicine at the university. Angers.

Dani's teachers and classmates soon noticed that medicine fascinates him much less than mathematics and physics. They could see the obvious enthusiasm for physical experiments that Papen showed. Denis experienced certain difficulties when graduating from the university, and when issuing a certificate of completion of the course, he was shown clear leniency. And yet he arrives in Paris in 1670 with the intention of starting a career as a doctor.

Assistant of Christian Huygens

As was customary, he had letters of recommendation to seek help in settling in the capital. One of them was addressed to the wife of the royal official Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marie Charron, who came from the same places as Papin. Denis, in a conversation with her husband, expressed his desire to engage in scientific research, and he was lucky. Colbert, on behalf of the king, organized the work of a group of scientists with the participation of the famous Christian Huygens, who needed an assistant. Dany enthusiastically took this place.

He began to help Huygens with experiments with vacuum, which the famous Dutchman was then interested in. In particular, he improved the air pump, with which a rarefied medium was created, for the first time using a special valve. In 1674, Papin's book New Experiments with Emptiness was published, devoted to the effect of an airless environment on plants and living organisms. The work of Papin and his pump became known to Robert Boyle, one of the founders of the English Royal Scientific Society, who invited the Frenchman toLondon.

Papen in England

From 1676 to 1681 he worked in London in close cooperation with Boyle, and later with another prominent scientist, Robert Hooke. He provides experiments on the study of the properties of gases, along with his own projects.

In 1679, he presented his invention - "a new digester, or bone softener" - the prototype of the modern pressure cooker and autoclave for the heat treatment of various materials. In developing this device, he applied the knowledge that he received as a physicist. Denis Papin proposed using high pressure when cooking meat, which is formed when heated. His cauldron is a vessel with a lid, which was fastened with screws, which made it possible to achieve tightness. The lid housed a valve weighed down with a weight that allowed excess pressure to be released.

But the inventor failed - his boiler did not find practical application. The screw fastening made it difficult to use, the inability to quickly release all the air after the end of cooking leveled the gain in time - you had to wait for cooling to remove the lid. A working model of a pressure cooker did not appear until more than two centuries later.

Trouble in Europe

In 1681, he travels to Italy at the invitation of Giovanni Ambrosio Sarotti, president of the Venice Academy of Sciences, who dreamed of giving it a significance similar to that of the Paris Academy and the Royal Society of London. But his attempts collapsed when he was denied fundingby the authorities.

In Europe, the persecution of Protestants is intensifying, and due to the abolition of the laws protecting the rights of the Huguenots by Louis XIV, Papin lost the opportunity to return to his homeland. From 1684 to 1687 he worked in London, then moved to Germany and held the position of professor of mathematics at the University of Marburg. There he decides to marry his cousin, who fled persecution from France and was left a widow with a little daughter in her arms.

Inventor of the steam engine

In 1690, he publishes a description of a water pumping device that first uses a steam engine. The invention of the engine that uses the power of steam, he was prompted by the experience he gained while working on the digester. He then for the first time felt the power of the energy of heated steam. The design details became clear in many respects during the correspondence with Gottfried Leibniz, when discussing a huge number of theoretical and practical scientific problems that this great scientist led with him. Denis Papin was the first to use the preparation of hot steam in a separate container - a boiler - and a safety valve, which in many ways made the use of a steam engine real. The scientist suggested using his engine for a self-propelled wagon and for a boat capable of moving quickly against the current using a paddle wheel.

The idea of a river steamer was opposed by the powerful guild of river carriers, who saw a strong competitor in the ship that Denis Papin was developing. Portrait of a scientist in front of a self-propelled ship being destroyed by a crowdboatmen and barge haulers, was often published in history books, although reliable information about this fact has not been preserved.

Papin also put forward other outstanding ideas for that time. Among them - a new glass-melting furnace, original ballistas - cannons for throwing charges over long distances, including with the help of air (prototypes of grenade launchers). His heritage includes a submarine, the principle of operation of a blast furnace, the use of vacuum for long-term storage of food, a centrifugal pump.

An unmarked grave and a huge monument

The exact date of the death of an outstanding scientist is unknown, as well as the place of his burial. He is believed to have died between 1712 and 1714. in London. Papen's last years were marred by a complete lack of money and a conflict with the Royal Scientific Society, which disputed his priority in the invention of the steam boiler.

For a whole century and a half, the well-deserved honors, which Denis Papin was finally awarded, were late. The portrait of a scientist adorns the Paris Academy, the Royal Society of Science, he is in all textbooks on the history of science. An impressive bronze statue is installed in the birthplace of the physicist in Blois.

The image of an unrecognized genius is also used to prove that the industrial revolution and the breakthrough in technology made in the 19th century also have French roots.