James Watt (1736–1819) was the Scottish engineer whose separate condenser, patented in 1769, turned the steam engine from a crude, wasteful mine pump into the efficient powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution; the SI unit of power, the watt, bears his name.
An instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, he saw in 1765 that the Newcomen engine wasted most of its fuel reheating its own cylinder — and solved it with a separate chamber where steam could condense without cooling the cylinder. His partnership with Matthew Boulton then sold the improved engine to the world.
