The Steam Engine and Electricity Powered the Industrial Revolution

The steam engine and the power industry revolution promoting the Industrial Revolution are very important historical processes that have changed the society and culture of the West and the world under the influence of technological and scientific progress. As industrialized today, the Western countries are the final result. The two main inventions, steam engine and electricity are important elements of technological progress that changed the wheels of the industrial revolution.

Historically, the Industrial Revolution has changed production and communication through the source of new power and transmission. The first industrial revolution used steam power to achieve mechanized production in the 1880's. The second was used to boost mass production in the 1870s. The third uses electronic equipment and software to automate production and communication from the 1970 's. Today, under the influence of software to the world, the main source of our value creation is information processing. By enabling us to make this smarter, machine learning will generate both humble and historical interests.

Productivity flourished between the first industrial revolution (driven by the iron and steam engine) and the second (driven by electricity, steel, chemicals and telecommunications). Since around 1870, these two revolutions have continued the progress of the golden century. Especially in the 1940s and 1950s it brought great benefits in the United States and other countries. So what happened? A third industrial revolution has occurred, with the information age. In the fields of computing, the Internet, and mobile communications, there was a large-scale innovation that changed the world. However, the productivity improvement engine is not accelerating again. In fact, since 1970, productivity growth has fallen to about a third of the past 100 years.

During the Second Industrial Revolution, the main factor in productivity growth was to replace labor of humans and animals with inanimate labor. As steam power generation and internal combustion take the place of limited wind and hydraulic power, the power also increases significantly. Since its replacement, the substantial expansion of total electric power has been promoted by improving the efficiency of energy conversion. Other main causes of historical productivity are automation, transportation infrastructure (canals, trains, highways), new materials (steel), and electricity including steam and internal combustion engines and electricity. Other productivity improvements include mechanized agriculture, chemical fertilizers, scientific agriculture including livestock and poultry management, and the Green Revolution. Replaceable parts made of electric machine tools have been developed to mass production which is currently in common use.