|
|
A Brief History of Heat
Heat. What would we be without it? Cold. Hungry. Immobile. Ever since mankind's ancestors first exploited fire over a million years ago, we've been hatching ever more ingenious ways of controlling the flames so that we might have all the benefits of heat without the frankly inconvenient smoke and danger.
Fire-making enabled us to cook food, which was crucial in fighting disease. The birth of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution saw fire used as a landscape management tool. Since then, we have refined our use of fire as a technical application. Smelting, for example, was a hugely important industry in the development of civilisation.
Quite apart from all the highly practical uses of heat as listed above, perhaps the root of our attraction lies in that much sought-after sensation – comfort. There is, after all, nothing more satisfying than simply watching and feeling the crackle and lick of a roaring open fire. Whether it's frostbitten hands or a slaughtered pig you're rotating, a glowing hearth is irresistible.
Then there's fuel. Fire is heat, heat is energy – and where would we be without energy?
The commercial implications of burning gas for heat were huge, ever since Robert Wilhelm Bunsen's lab assistant (Peter Desaga, to give him back the credit of which he was robbed) developed the first device to safely burn natural gas in 1855. The following year, an English company, Pettit and Smith, used the principles of the Bunsen burner to create the first gas heater, which spread heated air by convection. Apart from a few structural alterations to the radiator itself (such as replacing asbestos with less deadly materials), not much has changed. Indeed, the principle of controlling potentially deadly flames so that we can use them to our advantage is as crucial to modern development as it was to those Neolithic pioneers.
Nowadays, we barely even consider the actual flame at the root of our central heating, so refined is the modern gas boilers. We've improved the containment of heat with the condensing boiler, so that we can maximise the benefits of gas heating and waste less energy. From those early glorified Bunsens of Pettit and Smith to the sophisticated boilers we use today, mankind has truly mastered the taming of the flame, be it for food, transport, industry or simple home comfort.
Educational Websites
Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Compton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History, HistoryWorld, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20, Sintermeerten, ICT4LT |
News and Search
Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About
|
|
|
|
