Editing Steam engine (section)

=== Early experiments ===
[[File:Αιολόσφαιρα Μουσείο Κοτσανά Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Τεχνολογίας.jpg|left|thumb|200x200px|A big size reconstruction of [[Hero of Alexandria|Heron's]] aeolipile in [[Museum of Ancient Greek Technology|Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology]], Athens, Greece. ]]
One recorded rudimentary steam-powered engine was the [[aeolipile]] described by [[Hero of Alexandria]], a [[Hellenistic mathematics|Hellenistic mathematician]] and engineer in [[Egypt (Roman province)|Roman Egypt]] during the first century AD.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-45691 |title=turbine |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |date=18 July 2007}}</ref> In the following centuries, the few steam-powered engines known were, like the aeolipile,<ref name="Vitruvius">''"De Architectura"'': Chapter VI (paragraph 2)<br />from "Ten Books on Architecture" by [[Vitruvius]] (1st century BC), published 17, June, 08 [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/1*.html] accessed 2009-07-07</ref> essentially experimental devices used by inventors to demonstrate the properties of steam.

A rudimentary [[steam turbine]] device was described by [[Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf|Taqi al-Din]]<ref name="Hassan">[[Ahmad Y Hassan]] (1976). ''Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering'', pp. 34–35. Institute for the History of Arabic Science, [[University of Aleppo]].</ref> in [[Ottoman Egypt]] in 1551 and by [[Giovanni Branca]]<ref name="Giovanni">{{cite web
  |url=http://himedo.net/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Thurston/index.html<!-- http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/thurston/1878/Chapter1.html -->
  |title=University of Rochester, NY, ''The growth of the steam engine'' online history resource, chapter one
  |publisher=History.rochester.edu
  |access-date=2010-02-03
  |archive-date=24 July 2011
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724003544/http://himedo.net/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Thurston/index.html
  |url-status=dead
  }}</ref> in Italy in 1629.{{sfn|Nag|2002|p=432–}} The Spanish inventor [[Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont]] received patents in 1606  for 50 steam-powered inventions, including a water pump for draining inundated mines.<ref>{{cite book|last=Garcia|first=Nicholas|title=Mas alla de la Leyenda Negra|year=2007|publisher=Universidad de Valencia|location=Valencia|isbn=978-84-370-6791-9|pages=443–54}}</ref> By 1615, [[Salomon de Caus]] developed a solar-powered atmospheric engine.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caus |first=Salomon de (1576?-1626) Auteur du texte |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k10910177.texteImage |title=Les raisons des forces mouvantes, avec diverses machines tant utiles que plaisantes, ausquelles sont adjoints plusieurs desseins de grotes & fontaines augmentées de plusieurs figures, avec le discours sur chacune, par Salomon de Caus,... |date=1624–1724 |language=EN}}</ref> Frenchman [[Denis Papin]] did some useful work on the [[steam digester]] in 1679, and first used a piston to raise weights in 1690.{{sfn|Hills|1989|pp=15, 16, 33}}